One of the cool things that Substack offers is what they call a “Thread” post. This is a great way for us to have a conversation about … well, whatever. If you would like to talk about the switch from Patreon … or the awesomeness of dogs … or which baseball team is likely to create the most heartbreak in 2019 … or, really, anything. Post your thoughts, your questions, your one last meaningless things, whatever you want. Let’s see if we can get a conversation going.
Hey, Joe. Enjoy the blog and the new location. Just a heads up that it's 7/9 and it doesn't look like my card has been charged for this month. Not sure if it's just me or a larger issue. But want to make sure you get paid...
I have an idea to make baseball more fun: Ban the practice of backing-up throws. What's more exciting than when your team's player is rounding second, digging for third, and the right fielder airmails it? It's a run for sure, right? Except, no, the pitcher or someone is backing up the throw, and the runner stays at third. This is even more annoying on overthrows/errors to first base. I seem to remember that back in the day the runner almost always got second on these, but no more. I know this sounds silly and would be difficult to enforce, but I think it would be self-enforcing, because players wouldn't have to do the extra running to back up the bag!
I also have a question about baseball, and because you Joe, are the source and respository of all things nerdy and dorky about baseball, here it is. How did "batting average" as we use it and know it, come about? Clearly, saying a batter has a "three twenty six" batting average has more ring than saying he is a "thirty three" percent hitter, but wouldn't that actually be more relevantly accurate? Why in the world are we telling an average to the THOUSANDTHS place, when hitters don't even get a thousand plate appearances in a season? I didn't search further than Wikipedia, but I can't imagine batting average started out the way it is now. Okay, your job Joe to devote 13 hours of research to this topic. Thank you very much for all your writing. m
Maybe someone here can help me understand a baseball thing that I decidedly do *not* understand: When a runner slides head first into first base (which I hope we can all agree looks awesome), he is usually excoriated for doing it. The consensus seems to be that you have to slow down to slide, and it is faster to run through the bag. However, when Derek Jeter made that insane flip play to throw out Jeremy Giambi at the plate in the 2001 playoffs, Giambi was excoriated for *not* sliding. Which makes no sense to me.
If you can run through the bag at both first and home, why is it good to slide at home and bad to slide at first? I realize that home plate requires a tag while first base does not, but why does that matter?
Help me Michael, Joe, or whomever! I feel this is just the place to apply a rigorous, scientific, and objective analysis, and resolve this important dispute once and for all!
Thanks for the explanation Tim. It does make sense ... sort of. I get that it slows you down to slide into first. However, doesn't that also mean that it slows you down to slide into home? Which by my rationale means that even though the tag is harder to apply as you are sliding into home, in a bang-bang play won't you have beaten any chance at a tag by running through home plate, just as you would at first base? So it still seems to me that if you have to slow down to slide into home, your chances of scoring are decreased (even given the small tag target) vs. running through the bag, where you have the best chance of beating out the tag entirely. In other words, doesn't slowing down to slide give the catcher more time to tag you out, and wouldn't that negate the fact that you have less surface area to tag?
I'm sure I'm wrong, or somebody would have figured this out by now, but it still doesn't quite add up to me. Or maybe I am right, and Jeremy Giambi was in fact a genius ahead of his time!
In short, when Giambi didn't slide, he allowed Posada a large target, up high to tag. That's what happened (though there are some that believe he was actually safe). Nonetheless, the right play would be to slide wide right and reach with the hand for home plate. This makes the catcher tag the hand that's right at the ground level. A very hard tag for someone receiving the ball in front of the plate from foul territory, with his back to the runner. It's a virtual certainty that Giambi would have been safe with such a slide.... though there's no guarantee that his slide would have been very good.
Ha! Yes! I like your car analogy ... but you've lost me again with the statement "the value of the slide goes up as the speed matters less." Why does speed *ever* matter less?
Maybe it will help to break it down mathematically:
Let's say it takes five seconds to run from third to home. Now let's say you lose a quarter of a second by slowing down to slide. That means your slide needs to gain you *at least* a quarter of a second to make it worthwhile (obviously).
So if your slide is good and takes you away from the throw (like Rob pointed out) maybe it takes the catcher a half second to tag you and you are safe. But if your slide is poor and takes you towards the throw, maybe it takes the catcher a tenth of a second to get the tag down, meaning the slide actually hurt you (i.e. cost you time). Either way isn't it still speed that matters?
I suspect we are probably pretty close to on the same page, but I maintain that it's actually more nuanced and not nearly so cut and dry as conventional wisdom would have us believe.
As a middle-aged avid tennis player who constantly battles weight issues, I would love to read updates about the Harry Potter Diet and your exploits on the courts. Can we expect a new post about these topics any time in the new future?
Can the preview of each post be shorter, or just the title, it's a pain to scroll through entire posts or most of a post to find even recent older posts.
Hi Joe, I discovered your writing last football season through the Athletic, and I'm thrilled to subscribe to this blog-- really enjoying going back and reading older posts. I love the NFL, but especially love baseball at all levels. In the "meaningless things" category, I have sometimes tried (in vain) to discover any MLB games in over a century's worth of history with the "fewest zeros" in the line score... in other words, what's the record for two teams scoring at least one run in the most number of half innings? Have you got access to a team of statisticians uncovering obscure trivia?
You may want to repost that on your original Joe Blog site without the Patreon pay wall. If someone cancelled Patreon, or even just signed on to your site for the occasional free articles, they won't be able to see the offer.
He's an average hitter, but is super at fielding, baserunning, and avoiding DP. And he's played about a third of the time in CF, and gets credit for that. Underrated player?
I just received your thank you email. With regard to your preference of M&Ms type, mine aren't peanut but rather peanut butter (like Reese's Pieces but better), 😉.
I am currently so swamped, that I’ve stopped writing for The Athletic. I like those guys a lot and might re-engage when my schedule slows down. But for right now, my only sportswriting will appear here.
I may have missed this, but if I sign up for the Substack for one year today, when does it renew? Since I'm paid up through 7/1 on Patreon, I'm waiting until 6/30, because I don't want to lose a few days of subscription NEXT year.
I appreciate this. I’m double posting everything until the end of the month, so there will be no losses. But if you wait until 6/30, you will lose the discount. I purposely put in the annual discount so that those who sign up will save any money that might be lost in the transition. The discount will expire June 25.
Hum...how about one of Joe’s favorite topics; the future of the 300-win club. The 10th anniversary of Randy Johnson’s milestone was earlier this month (on June 4), and in the ten years that had followed there have been several pitchers that seem like legitimate contenders:
Justin Verlander (213) is pitching about as well as he has ever pitched, his home rum struggles notwithstanding. He has already talked about pitching into his mid-40s, which makes a run at 350 wins realistic as long as he wins at the same rate.
Zack Greinke (195) seems to have unlocked the secrets of retiring hitters and winning games even with diminished velocity. He is prone to disastrous games but is still one of the best pitchers in the National League.
Max Scherzer (165) is only barely halfway to 300 and he’s already almost 35, but he still seems to be only getting better. Now that he’s tied Sandy Koufax in wins the sky’s the limit.
Clayton Kershaw (160) may no longer be second coming of Sandy that he had been a few years earlier, but he is still one of the best pitchers on the best team in baseball.
Rick Porcello (140) is proving more and more that 2016 was a fluke, but he’s just now entering his 30s and he has the vaunted Red Sox offense behind him.
Chris Sale (106) is only 1/3 of the way to 300, but he seems to gave recovered from the early season struggles to become an Ace.
Can any of these pitchers break through to get to 300?
Greinke seems to me to be more like Mussina. He'll hit his late 30s, have a nice year, and just go, "Nah, not feeling it anymore," and that will be that.
How on Earth has Porcello been around for 11 years and have 140 wins? He just came up, like, three years ago, right? <i>RIGHT!?</i>
This is a minor nit, but I will pick it all the same: can we get an index, or at least a "recent posts" list? I accept that Substack puts up posts in long form, but on days when I suspect there might be more than one post it is a long scroll down to the bottom of the post to see what came before it.
Oh: I am still not finding the archived Baseball 100 entries for Tony Gwynn and Frankie Frisch. I don't know whether the problem is in my computer or in the archives.
Thanks, but not quite. The archive would work as a quick check for all recent posts, BUT my confidence in it would be enhanced f I did not know it to be incomplete, if only by the failure to migrate the posts for Baseball 94: Tony Gwynn and Baseball 83: Frankie Frisch.
That was my fault. In the transfer, I think I mistakenly deleted those two posts. I have just re-uploaded them to the site so you should be able to see them -- and all the Baseball 100s should be up now.
I've found them, thanks! Tony landed on Jan 01 when he "should" have been around September/October, but he's there. Have you considered publishing the essays in a book once you've counted all the way down?
I'd love to hear your opinion on something I've always wondered. Is it better to be a good baseball player almost no one remembers (first named that popped in my head, Jose Oquendo) or to be remembered, but only for something bad (Buckner).
Fred Merkle is still a name known among baseball fans (well, at least pretty hardcore fans), and he hasn't played a game in 93 years (considering he's been dead for 63 years, it'd be a bit weird if he had). He was a pretty good-but-far-from-great ballplayer, who'd be entirely forgotten but for his "boner." Heck, it's entirely possible that there isn't a single person alive today who even knew him when he was alive, and yet, thousands of baseball fans know his name (and future generations likely will as well).
Side note: Not only was he well known for his big screw-up, but according to Baseball Reference, his nickname was "Bonehead." Just... wow....
George Brett always said that he would rather be remembered for the Pine Tar madness than not remembered at all. Of course, it's not hard for Brett to say that considering he is remembered for so many things. But I think he's probably right.
Hey Joe. I am an avid baseball fan (old man, old style) I’m 78 and attended my 1st ga me in May 1947 ( my cousin and her fiancée took me to Ebbits field and saw something amazing-Jackie Robinson as a rookie). Here I am 6 years old and everyone(or it seemed so) everyone around me is saying things like “wow!” Or Did you see that but I was too busy eating my peanuts.
But the only time like that was I was at the K and saw Bo, frickin’ Jackson “Did you see that? Or WOW!!! He almost beat out a 2 bouncer to the 2nd baseman!! My question when did hear those words at a ball field for the first or la st time?
The first time i remember hearing "Wow" at a baseball game was -- and this is ridiculous -- when Don Hood picked off a runner. I have no idea why the crowd reacted the way they did but it was an overhwelming cheer. That is not NEARLY as good as seeing Jackie as a rookie, however. What an amazing story.
I want to say that my first Wow moment is in the late 60s when Frank Howard pummeled a ball at Angel Stadium. The ball was a rope to left center, that didn't get more than 10 feet off the ground and was kind of a sinking line drive. It hit the plywood fence about 2 feet below the top of the wall and the overspin caused it to climb the wall and go over the fence. Everyone was like HOLY S**T! Did you see that?!
Mark that is such a great question and I want to share my favorite Wow moment. 1977, sitting in Tiger Stadium and Jason ‘Rooftop’ Thompson hit two homeruns to each field but we’re down 4-2. He comes up with two on two out in the ninth and proceeds to hit a ball 6 feet foul that hardly started to arc when it went out of Tiger Stadium in about 2 seconds. Never saw anything like it. The whole stadium inhaled and then said WOW. And then, in true baseball fashion, he struck out and we all booed him like hell. And that’s why I love baseball
I wish I could remember his name but we saw something similar at Candlestick where a barely foul ball to right field landed in the back of the upper deck. It was immense. Glad it was foul because he was on the other team.
Where does the Rays' proposal (threat) to play part of their home games in Tampa and part in Montreal stand among the most creative schemes to extract public financing for a new stadium?
There's no way that both Tampa and Montreal build stadiums for half a season. It's absurd. Nobody would ever agree to it, and if they did, the cities would have some very fun recall elections for anyone that used their tax dollars for it.
I recall Bill Veeck's classic quote about the avaricious nature of baseball management: "Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us to pay income taxes, too?"
I’ve been thinking about Paul O’Neill because his sister Molly, the food writer, died this week. I am a native New Yorker and Yankee fan (*ducks*), so I thought he was great. Did anyone outside New York (or maybe Cincinnati) like him at all? Or maybe just respect his passion while mostly hating him and his team?
Paul O’Neill took-away a baseball memory for me. In 1990, Scott Garrelts threw 8-2/3 hitless innings for the Giants against the Reds. O’Neill then lined a single ... I’ve been to at least 200 MLB games, have seen two cycles and two ITP Grand Slams ... but not a no hitter. Thanks a lot, Paul.
Was one of the cycles you saw when Chris Speier did it in '88. I was at that game with my dad and it was crazy. John Tudor started and Brett Butler led off by getting on first, possibly with a bunt. Then Tudor proceeded to throw over to first base something like seven times in a row, finally picking Butler off before throwing a pitch. The Giants then went on to score 21 runs on 20 hits, five of which were home runs, including the 10,000th in team history. My favorite player, Will Clark, went 3 for 4 with a homer. But Speier was the star.
"Speier, 38, filling in at second base for ailing all-star Robby Thompson, hit for the cycle and had five RBI. He had two doubles, a triple, a home run and a single. It was the only five-hit game in Speier’s 19-year major-league career."
My dad and I decided last minute to go to the game and we were very glad we did.
yes, the Speier game was one of the two cycles - the other was Eric Byrnes, playing for the A's vs the Giants. (the two ITP GS's were by Bob Brower of the Texas Rangers @ Oakland, and Chico Walker of the Cubs @ Candlestick)
I may never see a No Hitter, so I remain eternally mad @ Paul O'Neill ... but I (grudgingly) admit that he was just doing his job ...
... and thanks for reminding me about the Giants 10,000th HR, which - if I remember correctly - was hit by Ernie Riles, and caused quite a controversy by the guy who "caught" it.
I am a long-term Reds fan and I LOVED Paul O'Neill. He was the key player in my favorite in-person game moment ever ... 1990 NLCS against the Pirates. This was the wire-to-wire pennant season and last WS winner for the Redlegs. My dad and I drove from Jackson, Mississippi to watch the first two games of the series at Riverfront Stadium. It was only my second time to ever see the Reds in person. The Reds had dropped Game 1 and I feared a loss in Game 2 would be too big a hole to climb out of.
The game was tied 1-1 in the top of the 6th when Andy Van Slyke and Bobby Bonilla singled to start the frame. Still skinny Barry Bonds came up with runners at 1st and 2nd and nobody out. I sat high in the right field upperdeck red seats, directly behind the great Paul O'Neill, when Bonds hit a high fly ball our way. O'Neill caught it and unleashed an absolute seed to Chris Sabo at third as Van Slyke attempted to advance. Sabo did an incredible job of deking Van Slyke, his body language showing no throw was coming, until the last minute when he stabbed his glove out, caught the throw and tagged Van Slyke out with one motion. Double play, momentum killed, right there, just like that. Paul O'Neill. Right there in front of me. Reds went on to win 2-1 behind Tom Browning, and were on their way! When I think about that season filled with wonderful moments, that one stands out.
It's a good thought ... drop a line to the Substack guys (support@substack.com). They're super responsive and are always trying to make this place better.
Did you know that second video ever played on MTV -- the first one after the obligator Video Killed the Radio Star -- was You Better Run by...can you guess? Who do you think performed in the first non-obligatory video on MTV? I'll give you a hint: Not int he rock 'n roll hall of fame
The Who is far and away the best artist on that list. Not that some of the others aren't good, but they're a step above. And You Better You Bet was probably their last great song.
This is interesting. I had no idea there was a controversy in the early years. Even though I watched the debut of MTV with friends (I was at a house that had cable - and a swimming pool - that day. ) I didn't have a TV with cable until 1985, and at that point I don't think it was a problem anymore. It is surprising and sad that this was a thing in the 80s.
I don't think it's sad or was a problem. MTV had a format in the first year, and that format was rock, including new wave. Very few black artists made rock music, and not many artists of any color were making videos. One reason why I asked the question is that I think a "reasonable" number of the few black artists that played rock or new wave and made videos did get played on MTV. But I don't know for sure.
MTV had a very small audience in their first year. So not many people, maybe nobody, cared about their format. And sometime between Prince's "1999" and "Billie Jean", they changed their format to include more black music, and lots of black artists were in heavy rotation from that point on.
There was what I remember as being a real controversy around 1986 when rap started getting popular, but MTV didn't play rap videos, or maybe played them only in the early A.M., or maybe played Run-D.M.C.'s "Walk This Way" and that was about it. People talked about that a lot, since MTV was mega-popular by that time. MTV's answer was the "Yo! MTV Raps" show, which started in 1988 and both was very popular and made rap very popular.
That's a great pick but I still think it can't have taken a full year. Wikipedia says though: "Musical Youth became the first black artists to appear in a studio segment on MTV." So, great pick. I had forgotten this song but now I remember it being on all the time on MTV in 1982.
That's the obvious guess, except that the "more" implies that MTV was playing -some- black artists before MJ. I also can't believe that they would go a whole year and a half without playing a single black artist. Certainly Prince got played with his singles from 1999?
Wikipedia sez this: The "Billie Jean" music video debuted on March 10, 1983 on MTV. It brought MTV—until then a fairly new and unknown music channel—to mainstream attention. It was one of the first videos by a black artist to be aired regularly by the channel, as the network's executives felt black music wasn't "rock" enough.
Great interview with David Bowie on MTV and their lack of videos from black artists from May of 1983, which I'm sure you've seen but is still worth reposting...
I just read "The Wildest Game Ever" and couldn't agree more about the absurdity of "baseball decorum" and your comparison to that of Downton Abbey. I have been laughing for a while at your line: If Neil Armstrong had played by baseball’s stupid unwritten rules of decorum, he would have whispered, “Yeah, I’m on the moon.”
I’d love to see you write essays or thoughts on the following topic- who are the most accomplished baseball players who never made the cover of sports illustrated?
How do we feel about spiders. They seem like bugs (bad). But they eat the other bugs (good). They're kinda creepy looking (bad), but Charlotte (good). Are you quicker to swat at them (because they are bad) or slower to swat at them (because they are good)? How do you feel about spiders in the house? How do other members of your family feel about them?
I only kill big ones, using some primal kill-or-be-killed instinct. Smaller ones can go forth and eat mosquitoes because they don’t trigger the same reaction.
Took this opportunity to clean up my RSS feeds and looked at the joeposnanski.com site again. You might want to remove the link to support via Patreon. And maybe put up one more post pointing people to the new joeposnanski.substack.com site if that is going to be the place for new posts.
Comment on the article about the Crazy Jays/Rangers playoff game. I am a high school teacher in Canada. I only got home to watch that game a few minutes after the kerfuffle began. That article reminded me of the emotions brought up when I was caught up to speed on what was going on. Watching the Jays overcome that adversity...with the help of the Ranger defensive misuces, is something I will never forget. The one thing I remember realizing after that game was the importance of a team's bench. John Gibbons had to have great faith in backup catcher Dioner Navarro in order to remove starting Catcher Russell Martin for pinch runner Dalton Pompey. Although Pompey was eventually forced out at the plate, his speed put pressure on the Ranger's D which surely had an impact on the error by Andrus at third and the catcher not being able to double up the runner at first.
The big-market, small-market thing has always been, at least in part, a state of mind. St. Louis is a small market, the 21st television market behind Miami, Minneapolis, Cleveland and others that consider themselves “small.” But St. Louis never considers itself a small market because of its rabid fan base, baseball history, etc. Miami has none of these things and has done, in my view, a terrible job of engaging the community, creating a baseball landscape and maintaining any consistency at all. The team they are putting on the field this year is unappealing in pretty much every way, and they’ve done a poor job explaining what the heck they’re trying to do., in my view.
I think a big part of that state of mind is the ownership and the fanbase. In the Bay Area, there are two stadiums that are less than 10 miles apart, as the crow flies. There are often days during the season where a fan could go to a day game for one team and a night game for the other. The SF Bay Area has over 7 million people. And yet, the A's are a small market team and the Giants are a large market team.
Montreal is a large hockey market and small baseball market. London is a large soccer market and small hockey market. What is missing is an "affinity" multiplier to the market size. The market is *market* not population.
If only they weren't cursed with small-minded exploitative management right from the start. More than 25 years as a team would have been plenty of time to build up a rabid fan base and an enduring baseball history.
Also, Miami probably has the lowest %age of English speakers of big cities in the US. On the other hand, I thought Latinos were supposed to be bigger baseball fans than Americans in general.
In any case, Miami isn't a small market. I'd call it a medium market. It has teams, and successful ones, for all major sports, which on its own might be enough to disprove its being a small market. There are plenty of legitimately small markets in MLB: Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Baltimore, maybe Cleveland.
Also, after living in Florida for 3 years I did notice how the LARGE elderly population retire down there and don't seem to have a lot of extra income, or at least a willingness to spend it..like even 3 dollars for an ice cream sundae. Trust me on this one.
I'm from KC and we're only a small market when we're horrible. If we have a good team like 2014-2016 the fans come out in droves, T-shirt/hat sales go bezerk, and everybody watches on TV. I went to a KC AT Miami game(in Miami) in 2016 and there were tons of Royals fans more than Marlins fans that's for sure. Last year I ran into a KC fan near Tampa and he said "I don't watch them when their this bad". This is probably the same for all baseball markets except for Tampa and Miami, nobody cares about them and I've been to both of their stadiums. The Marlins stadium is at least very nice.
I would guess there are 2 problems: 1) Miami has a high population of transplants. So lots of people fans of teams from somewhere else, so they don't care about the Marlins. 2) In 25 years of existence, ownership has never really committed to building a team for people to care about. They start a new rebuild every couple years. Crazy that they managed to win two World Series. But who would be the most identifiable/favorite Marlins player of all time? There just doesn't seem to be anything there for fans to care about.
Now here's a thought... was Willis the closest we had in modern times to Mark Fidrych? I mean, he wasn't Fidrych, but in terms of a guy who was really good right from the start, exuded joy on the mound (and inspired it in those who watched him), and then sadly burned out all too soon.
Love your blog, Joe, and thrilled to pay for a subscription and support your writing. In the spirit of "Whatever I want"...The Yankees look just about unbeatable right now, don't they?
Hey Joe. I just subscribed to substack and I like the look of it! I am wondering if I need to do anything to end my Patreon subscription. Or will it just end because you have ended your affiliation with them? Thanks! I'm looking forward to the next PosCast!!
As a Dodgers fan it feels ridiculous to talk about "heartbreak" given how good the team is and has been, but losing 3 World Series in a row would be... upsetting.
OK, so I haven't explained this ... I need to explain it. I'm still writing and posting the Shadowball 100 pieces. But I've stopped calling it the Shadowball 100 because, in the end, it was too baffling. I had this intricate pattern (which I can explain later) that, in the end, just didn't make a whole lot of sense. So I'm now writing the Shadowball pieces as stand-alones periodically. But I can tell you we will have something really fun coming up starting in August -- another countdown that was part of the Shadowball series. I think it will be really cool.
FWIW I'd like it still to be called the Shadowball series. Trying to figure out the pattern was fun to me. But more than that, I liked the posts being connected to the Baseball 100. I always took the two sets as being tied together, one telling the story of baseball via the 100 best players, and the other filling out the story of baseball, because the real story is bigger and more than just its best players.
Ok that’s fine and all that but I really liked the shadowball series as it was. I know it was confusing...that’s part of what I loved about it. I loved the idea (nonsense though it was) that Rachel Phelps was the 85th best or most important or whatever fictional or baseball character ever. (I know some of the shadowball essays were real people...you get the idea.) the nonsense rankings were part of the silly magic.
Hey, Joe. Enjoy the blog and the new location. Just a heads up that it's 7/9 and it doesn't look like my card has been charged for this month. Not sure if it's just me or a larger issue. But want to make sure you get paid...
I just wanted to say the reading experience is significantly better here at Substack. Mobile especially. Thanks for making the switch.
I have an idea to make baseball more fun: Ban the practice of backing-up throws. What's more exciting than when your team's player is rounding second, digging for third, and the right fielder airmails it? It's a run for sure, right? Except, no, the pitcher or someone is backing up the throw, and the runner stays at third. This is even more annoying on overthrows/errors to first base. I seem to remember that back in the day the runner almost always got second on these, but no more. I know this sounds silly and would be difficult to enforce, but I think it would be self-enforcing, because players wouldn't have to do the extra running to back up the bag!
Surely I’m in the minority but I’d like to hear more about Houdini.
And why does this comments software not allow for editing? Try going back into your post and adding words or correcting an error....
I also have a question about baseball, and because you Joe, are the source and respository of all things nerdy and dorky about baseball, here it is. How did "batting average" as we use it and know it, come about? Clearly, saying a batter has a "three twenty six" batting average has more ring than saying he is a "thirty three" percent hitter, but wouldn't that actually be more relevantly accurate? Why in the world are we telling an average to the THOUSANDTHS place, when hitters don't even get a thousand plate appearances in a season? I didn't search further than Wikipedia, but I can't imagine batting average started out the way it is now. Okay, your job Joe to devote 13 hours of research to this topic. Thank you very much for all your writing. m
Hey Joe, I really need that Top Secret entrance to Arrowhead parking lot. I promise I won't tell Sam.
Joe, thanks for the steady stream of reminder emails that finally caught me on a Saturday (not at work) so I could make the switch!
Maybe someone here can help me understand a baseball thing that I decidedly do *not* understand: When a runner slides head first into first base (which I hope we can all agree looks awesome), he is usually excoriated for doing it. The consensus seems to be that you have to slow down to slide, and it is faster to run through the bag. However, when Derek Jeter made that insane flip play to throw out Jeremy Giambi at the plate in the 2001 playoffs, Giambi was excoriated for *not* sliding. Which makes no sense to me.
If you can run through the bag at both first and home, why is it good to slide at home and bad to slide at first? I realize that home plate requires a tag while first base does not, but why does that matter?
Help me Michael, Joe, or whomever! I feel this is just the place to apply a rigorous, scientific, and objective analysis, and resolve this important dispute once and for all!
Thanks for the explanation Tim. It does make sense ... sort of. I get that it slows you down to slide into first. However, doesn't that also mean that it slows you down to slide into home? Which by my rationale means that even though the tag is harder to apply as you are sliding into home, in a bang-bang play won't you have beaten any chance at a tag by running through home plate, just as you would at first base? So it still seems to me that if you have to slow down to slide into home, your chances of scoring are decreased (even given the small tag target) vs. running through the bag, where you have the best chance of beating out the tag entirely. In other words, doesn't slowing down to slide give the catcher more time to tag you out, and wouldn't that negate the fact that you have less surface area to tag?
I'm sure I'm wrong, or somebody would have figured this out by now, but it still doesn't quite add up to me. Or maybe I am right, and Jeremy Giambi was in fact a genius ahead of his time!
In short, when Giambi didn't slide, he allowed Posada a large target, up high to tag. That's what happened (though there are some that believe he was actually safe). Nonetheless, the right play would be to slide wide right and reach with the hand for home plate. This makes the catcher tag the hand that's right at the ground level. A very hard tag for someone receiving the ball in front of the plate from foul territory, with his back to the runner. It's a virtual certainty that Giambi would have been safe with such a slide.... though there's no guarantee that his slide would have been very good.
That does make sense. Thanks.
The conclusion I'm taking away is that a good slide helps you (buys you time); while a bad slide hurts you (costs time).
And let's be honest: Giambi's slide would not have been good. ;)
Ha! Yes! I like your car analogy ... but you've lost me again with the statement "the value of the slide goes up as the speed matters less." Why does speed *ever* matter less?
Maybe it will help to break it down mathematically:
Let's say it takes five seconds to run from third to home. Now let's say you lose a quarter of a second by slowing down to slide. That means your slide needs to gain you *at least* a quarter of a second to make it worthwhile (obviously).
So if your slide is good and takes you away from the throw (like Rob pointed out) maybe it takes the catcher a half second to tag you and you are safe. But if your slide is poor and takes you towards the throw, maybe it takes the catcher a tenth of a second to get the tag down, meaning the slide actually hurt you (i.e. cost you time). Either way isn't it still speed that matters?
I suspect we are probably pretty close to on the same page, but I maintain that it's actually more nuanced and not nearly so cut and dry as conventional wisdom would have us believe.
As a middle-aged avid tennis player who constantly battles weight issues, I would love to read updates about the Harry Potter Diet and your exploits on the courts. Can we expect a new post about these topics any time in the new future?
Can the preview of each post be shorter, or just the title, it's a pain to scroll through entire posts or most of a post to find even recent older posts.
I second this.
Hi Joe, I discovered your writing last football season through the Athletic, and I'm thrilled to subscribe to this blog-- really enjoying going back and reading older posts. I love the NFL, but especially love baseball at all levels. In the "meaningless things" category, I have sometimes tried (in vain) to discover any MLB games in over a century's worth of history with the "fewest zeros" in the line score... in other words, what's the record for two teams scoring at least one run in the most number of half innings? Have you got access to a team of statisticians uncovering obscure trivia?
The first e-mail I received with the discount said "the discount link will continue to work into July." Is that still the case?
I’m afraid not. The discount will expire next Friday, June 28. There are numerous technical reasons for this.
You may want to repost that on your original Joe Blog site without the Patreon pay wall. If someone cancelled Patreon, or even just signed on to your site for the occasional free articles, they won't be able to see the offer.
Hey Joe - who can explain how Brett Gardner, with a career OPS of .736, has a career WAR of 38.9?
He's an average hitter, but is super at fielding, baserunning, and avoiding DP. And he's played about a third of the time in CF, and gets credit for that. Underrated player?
Yes. You can start with him being +132 defensive runs saved as an outfielder. That is a bunch of runs.
I hope this leads to community atmosphere among Joe's fans
Thinking about Jesse Winker's slide into third during last night's Reds/Brewers game [ https://www.mlb.com/cut4/jesse-winker-avoids-tag-with-ninja-moves ] I wonder about a list of all time greatest/worst/weirdest slides.
I just received your thank you email. With regard to your preference of M&Ms type, mine aren't peanut but rather peanut butter (like Reese's Pieces but better), 😉.
Hi Joe, I'm happy to follow you to Substack and/or any other platform you may use for your writing!!
Hey Joe are you still writing for the Athletic?
I am currently so swamped, that I’ve stopped writing for The Athletic. I like those guys a lot and might re-engage when my schedule slows down. But for right now, my only sportswriting will appear here.
The most heartbreak? Oh, that’s certainly the Twins don’t you think?
I may have missed this, but if I sign up for the Substack for one year today, when does it renew? Since I'm paid up through 7/1 on Patreon, I'm waiting until 6/30, because I don't want to lose a few days of subscription NEXT year.
I appreciate this. I’m double posting everything until the end of the month, so there will be no losses. But if you wait until 6/30, you will lose the discount. I purposely put in the annual discount so that those who sign up will save any money that might be lost in the transition. The discount will expire June 25.
Biggest disappointment of 2019: the Twins, should they make it to the playoffs. They’ll fold like a cheap suitcase.
Hum...how about one of Joe’s favorite topics; the future of the 300-win club. The 10th anniversary of Randy Johnson’s milestone was earlier this month (on June 4), and in the ten years that had followed there have been several pitchers that seem like legitimate contenders:
Justin Verlander (213) is pitching about as well as he has ever pitched, his home rum struggles notwithstanding. He has already talked about pitching into his mid-40s, which makes a run at 350 wins realistic as long as he wins at the same rate.
Zack Greinke (195) seems to have unlocked the secrets of retiring hitters and winning games even with diminished velocity. He is prone to disastrous games but is still one of the best pitchers in the National League.
Max Scherzer (165) is only barely halfway to 300 and he’s already almost 35, but he still seems to be only getting better. Now that he’s tied Sandy Koufax in wins the sky’s the limit.
Clayton Kershaw (160) may no longer be second coming of Sandy that he had been a few years earlier, but he is still one of the best pitchers on the best team in baseball.
Rick Porcello (140) is proving more and more that 2016 was a fluke, but he’s just now entering his 30s and he has the vaunted Red Sox offense behind him.
Chris Sale (106) is only 1/3 of the way to 300, but he seems to gave recovered from the early season struggles to become an Ace.
Can any of these pitchers break through to get to 300?
Greinke seems to me to be more like Mussina. He'll hit his late 30s, have a nice year, and just go, "Nah, not feeling it anymore," and that will be that.
How on Earth has Porcello been around for 11 years and have 140 wins? He just came up, like, three years ago, right? <i>RIGHT!?</i>
I second the "no". 250 "wins" will be the standard going forward.
No
This is a minor nit, but I will pick it all the same: can we get an index, or at least a "recent posts" list? I accept that Substack puts up posts in long form, but on days when I suspect there might be more than one post it is a long scroll down to the bottom of the post to see what came before it.
Oh: I am still not finding the archived Baseball 100 entries for Tony Gwynn and Frankie Frisch. I don't know whether the problem is in my computer or in the archives.
I agree with this. I'd like to see a column on the side of the page with a listing of recent posts. Maybe a link to the archive at the bottom.
Substack person here. Is this what you're looking for? https://joeposnanski.substack.com/archive
Thanks, but not quite. The archive would work as a quick check for all recent posts, BUT my confidence in it would be enhanced f I did not know it to be incomplete, if only by the failure to migrate the posts for Baseball 94: Tony Gwynn and Baseball 83: Frankie Frisch.
That was my fault. In the transfer, I think I mistakenly deleted those two posts. I have just re-uploaded them to the site so you should be able to see them -- and all the Baseball 100s should be up now.
I've found them, thanks! Tony landed on Jan 01 when he "should" have been around September/October, but he's there. Have you considered publishing the essays in a book once you've counted all the way down?
Not only have I considered it, but I will do it. More details as we got into the 20s.
Once again, I volunteer to help design and get the book published. <please?>
I'd love to hear your opinion on something I've always wondered. Is it better to be a good baseball player almost no one remembers (first named that popped in my head, Jose Oquendo) or to be remembered, but only for something bad (Buckner).
Fred Merkle is still a name known among baseball fans (well, at least pretty hardcore fans), and he hasn't played a game in 93 years (considering he's been dead for 63 years, it'd be a bit weird if he had). He was a pretty good-but-far-from-great ballplayer, who'd be entirely forgotten but for his "boner." Heck, it's entirely possible that there isn't a single person alive today who even knew him when he was alive, and yet, thousands of baseball fans know his name (and future generations likely will as well).
Side note: Not only was he well known for his big screw-up, but according to Baseball Reference, his nickname was "Bonehead." Just... wow....
George Brett always said that he would rather be remembered for the Pine Tar madness than not remembered at all. Of course, it's not hard for Brett to say that considering he is remembered for so many things. But I think he's probably right.
I’m of an age where I also remember him for two other things — flirting with .400 and having hemorrhoids during the World Series. :-)
#5 hit a late inning 3 run blast against Goose Gossage in Yankee Stadium that shut up the crowd and launched KC to it's first World Series.
Hey Joe. I am an avid baseball fan (old man, old style) I’m 78 and attended my 1st ga me in May 1947 ( my cousin and her fiancée took me to Ebbits field and saw something amazing-Jackie Robinson as a rookie). Here I am 6 years old and everyone(or it seemed so) everyone around me is saying things like “wow!” Or Did you see that but I was too busy eating my peanuts.
But the only time like that was I was at the K and saw Bo, frickin’ Jackson “Did you see that? Or WOW!!! He almost beat out a 2 bouncer to the 2nd baseman!! My question when did hear those words at a ball field for the first or la st time?
The first time i remember hearing "Wow" at a baseball game was -- and this is ridiculous -- when Don Hood picked off a runner. I have no idea why the crowd reacted the way they did but it was an overhwelming cheer. That is not NEARLY as good as seeing Jackie as a rookie, however. What an amazing story.
I want to say that my first Wow moment is in the late 60s when Frank Howard pummeled a ball at Angel Stadium. The ball was a rope to left center, that didn't get more than 10 feet off the ground and was kind of a sinking line drive. It hit the plywood fence about 2 feet below the top of the wall and the overspin caused it to climb the wall and go over the fence. Everyone was like HOLY S**T! Did you see that?!
Joe, did you react to the “WOW because of peanuts? Or because you were entering notes in the scorecard??
Mark that is such a great question and I want to share my favorite Wow moment. 1977, sitting in Tiger Stadium and Jason ‘Rooftop’ Thompson hit two homeruns to each field but we’re down 4-2. He comes up with two on two out in the ninth and proceeds to hit a ball 6 feet foul that hardly started to arc when it went out of Tiger Stadium in about 2 seconds. Never saw anything like it. The whole stadium inhaled and then said WOW. And then, in true baseball fashion, he struck out and we all booed him like hell. And that’s why I love baseball
I wish I could remember his name but we saw something similar at Candlestick where a barely foul ball to right field landed in the back of the upper deck. It was immense. Glad it was foul because he was on the other team.
Where does the Rays' proposal (threat) to play part of their home games in Tampa and part in Montreal stand among the most creative schemes to extract public financing for a new stadium?
I can't tell if it's creative genius or sheer absurdity.
There's no way that both Tampa and Montreal build stadiums for half a season. It's absurd. Nobody would ever agree to it, and if they did, the cities would have some very fun recall elections for anyone that used their tax dollars for it.
I recall Bill Veeck's classic quote about the avaricious nature of baseball management: "Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us to pay income taxes, too?"
I’ve been thinking about Paul O’Neill because his sister Molly, the food writer, died this week. I am a native New Yorker and Yankee fan (*ducks*), so I thought he was great. Did anyone outside New York (or maybe Cincinnati) like him at all? Or maybe just respect his passion while mostly hating him and his team?
Paul O’Neill took-away a baseball memory for me. In 1990, Scott Garrelts threw 8-2/3 hitless innings for the Giants against the Reds. O’Neill then lined a single ... I’ve been to at least 200 MLB games, have seen two cycles and two ITP Grand Slams ... but not a no hitter. Thanks a lot, Paul.
I remember that game. That was rough.
Was one of the cycles you saw when Chris Speier did it in '88. I was at that game with my dad and it was crazy. John Tudor started and Brett Butler led off by getting on first, possibly with a bunt. Then Tudor proceeded to throw over to first base something like seven times in a row, finally picking Butler off before throwing a pitch. The Giants then went on to score 21 runs on 20 hits, five of which were home runs, including the 10,000th in team history. My favorite player, Will Clark, went 3 for 4 with a homer. But Speier was the star.
"Speier, 38, filling in at second base for ailing all-star Robby Thompson, hit for the cycle and had five RBI. He had two doubles, a triple, a home run and a single. It was the only five-hit game in Speier’s 19-year major-league career."
My dad and I decided last minute to go to the game and we were very glad we did.
yes, the Speier game was one of the two cycles - the other was Eric Byrnes, playing for the A's vs the Giants. (the two ITP GS's were by Bob Brower of the Texas Rangers @ Oakland, and Chico Walker of the Cubs @ Candlestick)
I may never see a No Hitter, so I remain eternally mad @ Paul O'Neill ... but I (grudgingly) admit that he was just doing his job ...
... and thanks for reminding me about the Giants 10,000th HR, which - if I remember correctly - was hit by Ernie Riles, and caused quite a controversy by the guy who "caught" it.
Native New Yorker? No need to throw things because you're a Yankees fan.
I am a long-term Reds fan and I LOVED Paul O'Neill. He was the key player in my favorite in-person game moment ever ... 1990 NLCS against the Pirates. This was the wire-to-wire pennant season and last WS winner for the Redlegs. My dad and I drove from Jackson, Mississippi to watch the first two games of the series at Riverfront Stadium. It was only my second time to ever see the Reds in person. The Reds had dropped Game 1 and I feared a loss in Game 2 would be too big a hole to climb out of.
The game was tied 1-1 in the top of the 6th when Andy Van Slyke and Bobby Bonilla singled to start the frame. Still skinny Barry Bonds came up with runners at 1st and 2nd and nobody out. I sat high in the right field upperdeck red seats, directly behind the great Paul O'Neill, when Bonds hit a high fly ball our way. O'Neill caught it and unleashed an absolute seed to Chris Sabo at third as Van Slyke attempted to advance. Sabo did an incredible job of deking Van Slyke, his body language showing no throw was coming, until the last minute when he stabbed his glove out, caught the throw and tagged Van Slyke out with one motion. Double play, momentum killed, right there, just like that. Paul O'Neill. Right there in front of me. Reds went on to win 2-1 behind Tom Browning, and were on their way! When I think about that season filled with wonderful moments, that one stands out.
I think Paul O'Neill was pretty widely liked and disliked, which is just about all any ballplayer can hope to be.
I love the idea of threads like this -- although not sure if it'll support GIFs in it, which would be a cool feature. http://m.mlb.com/images/6/3/8/154473638/101415_tor_bats_batflip_lowres_gjvlzoc9.gif
Update: Looks like not. Still, I like how it shows up in the banner on the main page!
It's a good thought ... drop a line to the Substack guys (support@substack.com). They're super responsive and are always trying to make this place better.
Did you know that second video ever played on MTV -- the first one after the obligator Video Killed the Radio Star -- was You Better Run by...can you guess? Who do you think performed in the first non-obligatory video on MTV? I'll give you a hint: Not int he rock 'n roll hall of fame
Who had the most different videos played in that first day?
1. Rod Stewart, making the argument for quantity over quality, with 16.
2. REO Speedwagon with 14
3. The Pretenders with 11
4. The Who with 9
5. April Wine with 7
6. Split Enz with 7
It's kind of shocking to me how high those numbers are.
The Who were once known as "The High Numbers". Coincidence? I think not.
HAHAHA
Who had videos back then? I think it speaks to a lack of supply.
I just checked, and there IS a wikipedia page on this. The first videos played on MTV. A playlist of 208 videos (116 unique videos). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_music_videos_aired_on_MTV
The first 10:
1 "Video Killed the Radio Star" The Buggles
2 "You Better Run" Pat Benatar
3 "She Won't Dance With Me" Rod Stewart
4 "You Better You Bet" The Who
5 "Little Suzi's on the Up" Ph.D.
6 "We Don't Talk Anymore" Cliff Richard
7 "Brass in Pocket" The Pretenders
8 "Time Heals" Todd Rundgren
9* "Take It on the Run" REO Speedwagon
10 "Rockin' the Paradise" Styx
The Who is far and away the best artist on that list. Not that some of the others aren't good, but they're a step above. And You Better You Bet was probably their last great song.
Well, maybe. Eminence Front came out after You Better You bet and that's a really good song too.
I'm listening to Eminence Front right now...
Wow. I was alive for the early days of MTV (I'm 47 now). I have never heard of the band PhD, or that song. (But I am familiar with the Tesla version.)
Cliff Richard coming in at 6!?!?!? Question: did he EVER have a video played on MTV after the network's first year of existence?
The most played videos on that first day? Three were played 5 times.
"You Better You Bet" The Who
"Just Between You and Me" April Wine
"In the Air Tonight" Phil Collins
Important to note that #2 (Pat Benatar) and #3 (Rod Stewart) share a birthday. But everyone knows that, right?
The hint makes it sounds like it's Pat Benatar.
What and when was the first video by a black artist on MTV?
This is interesting. I had no idea there was a controversy in the early years. Even though I watched the debut of MTV with friends (I was at a house that had cable - and a swimming pool - that day. ) I didn't have a TV with cable until 1985, and at that point I don't think it was a problem anymore. It is surprising and sad that this was a thing in the 80s.
I don't think it's sad or was a problem. MTV had a format in the first year, and that format was rock, including new wave. Very few black artists made rock music, and not many artists of any color were making videos. One reason why I asked the question is that I think a "reasonable" number of the few black artists that played rock or new wave and made videos did get played on MTV. But I don't know for sure.
MTV had a very small audience in their first year. So not many people, maybe nobody, cared about their format. And sometime between Prince's "1999" and "Billie Jean", they changed their format to include more black music, and lots of black artists were in heavy rotation from that point on.
There was what I remember as being a real controversy around 1986 when rap started getting popular, but MTV didn't play rap videos, or maybe played them only in the early A.M., or maybe played Run-D.M.C.'s "Walk This Way" and that was about it. People talked about that a lot, since MTV was mega-popular by that time. MTV's answer was the "Yo! MTV Raps" show, which started in 1988 and both was very popular and made rap very popular.
The Specials' "Rat Race" was video #61. They were a multiracial group. The leaders of the group were white, though, so I don't know if it counts.
I came across some other 1981-82 MTV videos by black artists...
Prince - "1999" was apparently in heavy rotation in late 1982.
Bus Boys - "American Worker"
Sylvester - "Hard Up"
Donna Summer, Diana Ross, and Eddy Grant may also have had videos in the first year.
I *think* it might have been Musical Youth with "Pass the Dutchie" from late '82 (still shockingly late for MTV to break that barrier...)
That's a great pick but I still think it can't have taken a full year. Wikipedia says though: "Musical Youth became the first black artists to appear in a studio segment on MTV." So, great pick. I had forgotten this song but now I remember it being on all the time on MTV in 1982.
Wasn't that Billie Jean by Michael Jackson? The record company refused to release the video until MTV started playing more black artists.
That's the obvious guess, except that the "more" implies that MTV was playing -some- black artists before MJ. I also can't believe that they would go a whole year and a half without playing a single black artist. Certainly Prince got played with his singles from 1999?
Wikipedia sez this: The "Billie Jean" music video debuted on March 10, 1983 on MTV. It brought MTV—until then a fairly new and unknown music channel—to mainstream attention. It was one of the first videos by a black artist to be aired regularly by the channel, as the network's executives felt black music wasn't "rock" enough.
Great interview with David Bowie on MTV and their lack of videos from black artists from May of 1983, which I'm sure you've seen but is still worth reposting...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg
Of course
Pat Benatar.
I just read "The Wildest Game Ever" and couldn't agree more about the absurdity of "baseball decorum" and your comparison to that of Downton Abbey. I have been laughing for a while at your line: If Neil Armstrong had played by baseball’s stupid unwritten rules of decorum, he would have whispered, “Yeah, I’m on the moon.”
"act like you've been here before, Neil." Read it to my husband while in a cab. Driver laughed out loud.
No, he would've pounded his chest, looked up, and pointed at the sky. Or the Earth, maybe. Maybe the direction opposite to the Earth.
I’d love to see you write essays or thoughts on the following topic- who are the most accomplished baseball players who never made the cover of sports illustrated?
That is a brilliant question. Now I'm going to have to make a database of SI cover subjects this weekend.
OMG that's such a posnanski idea. Now we'll NEVER get that iPad review.
How do we feel about spiders. They seem like bugs (bad). But they eat the other bugs (good). They're kinda creepy looking (bad), but Charlotte (good). Are you quicker to swat at them (because they are bad) or slower to swat at them (because they are good)? How do you feel about spiders in the house? How do other members of your family feel about them?
I think spiders are a heck of a lot less creepy than mosquitoes, let alone cockroaches (yuck).
The only good spiders are radioactive.
I only kill big ones, using some primal kill-or-be-killed instinct. Smaller ones can go forth and eat mosquitoes because they don’t trigger the same reaction.
Took this opportunity to clean up my RSS feeds and looked at the joeposnanski.com site again. You might want to remove the link to support via Patreon. And maybe put up one more post pointing people to the new joeposnanski.substack.com site if that is going to be the place for new posts.
Another nerd with OCD! ;-)
Comment on the article about the Crazy Jays/Rangers playoff game. I am a high school teacher in Canada. I only got home to watch that game a few minutes after the kerfuffle began. That article reminded me of the emotions brought up when I was caught up to speed on what was going on. Watching the Jays overcome that adversity...with the help of the Ranger defensive misuces, is something I will never forget. The one thing I remember realizing after that game was the importance of a team's bench. John Gibbons had to have great faith in backup catcher Dioner Navarro in order to remove starting Catcher Russell Martin for pinch runner Dalton Pompey. Although Pompey was eventually forced out at the plate, his speed put pressure on the Ranger's D which surely had an impact on the error by Andrus at third and the catcher not being able to double up the runner at first.
Why is Miami a "small market" for baseball? 4th largest urban area in the U.S.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas
The big-market, small-market thing has always been, at least in part, a state of mind. St. Louis is a small market, the 21st television market behind Miami, Minneapolis, Cleveland and others that consider themselves “small.” But St. Louis never considers itself a small market because of its rabid fan base, baseball history, etc. Miami has none of these things and has done, in my view, a terrible job of engaging the community, creating a baseball landscape and maintaining any consistency at all. The team they are putting on the field this year is unappealing in pretty much every way, and they’ve done a poor job explaining what the heck they’re trying to do., in my view.
I think a big part of that state of mind is the ownership and the fanbase. In the Bay Area, there are two stadiums that are less than 10 miles apart, as the crow flies. There are often days during the season where a fan could go to a day game for one team and a night game for the other. The SF Bay Area has over 7 million people. And yet, the A's are a small market team and the Giants are a large market team.
Montreal is a large hockey market and small baseball market. London is a large soccer market and small hockey market. What is missing is an "affinity" multiplier to the market size. The market is *market* not population.
If only they weren't cursed with small-minded exploitative management right from the start. More than 25 years as a team would have been plenty of time to build up a rabid fan base and an enduring baseball history.
I think Oakland's terrible location and terrible stadium have been their biggest problems. If they moved to San Jose, they'd be much better off.
I'm wondering why the A's didn't move to San Jose about 25 years ago.
Hey, but at least they are taking advantage of tax payers in the process!
Well, Miami is the #16 TV market according to this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_North_America_by_media_market
Also, Miami probably has the lowest %age of English speakers of big cities in the US. On the other hand, I thought Latinos were supposed to be bigger baseball fans than Americans in general.
In any case, Miami isn't a small market. I'd call it a medium market. It has teams, and successful ones, for all major sports, which on its own might be enough to disprove its being a small market. There are plenty of legitimately small markets in MLB: Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Baltimore, maybe Cleveland.
Also, after living in Florida for 3 years I did notice how the LARGE elderly population retire down there and don't seem to have a lot of extra income, or at least a willingness to spend it..like even 3 dollars for an ice cream sundae. Trust me on this one.
I'm from KC and we're only a small market when we're horrible. If we have a good team like 2014-2016 the fans come out in droves, T-shirt/hat sales go bezerk, and everybody watches on TV. I went to a KC AT Miami game(in Miami) in 2016 and there were tons of Royals fans more than Marlins fans that's for sure. Last year I ran into a KC fan near Tampa and he said "I don't watch them when their this bad". This is probably the same for all baseball markets except for Tampa and Miami, nobody cares about them and I've been to both of their stadiums. The Marlins stadium is at least very nice.
I would guess there are 2 problems: 1) Miami has a high population of transplants. So lots of people fans of teams from somewhere else, so they don't care about the Marlins. 2) In 25 years of existence, ownership has never really committed to building a team for people to care about. They start a new rebuild every couple years. Crazy that they managed to win two World Series. But who would be the most identifiable/favorite Marlins player of all time? There just doesn't seem to be anything there for fans to care about.
Stanton is definitely #1. Willis is a good pick too. I'll go with Luis Castillo for #2. Hanley Ramirez hasn't been mentioned yet.
Oh, man, that’s a tough question - most identifiably (or, I suppose, most iconic?) Marlin of all time... All of the really good ones were traded.
By bWAR, the all-time greatest Marlin - by nearly 10 WAR - is.... Giancarlo Stanton?!?
Josh Johnson, by a significant amount, has the most bWAR for Marlins pitchers.
Gotta be Dontrelle Willis
Now here's a thought... was Willis the closest we had in modern times to Mark Fidrych? I mean, he wasn't Fidrych, but in terms of a guy who was really good right from the start, exuded joy on the mound (and inspired it in those who watched him), and then sadly burned out all too soon.
If true, that's rough. He only played there 5 seasons, and his 5th season wasn't very good.
Jeff Conine? Charles Johnson? Kevin Brown? Jose Fernandez?
Love your blog, Joe, and thrilled to pay for a subscription and support your writing. In the spirit of "Whatever I want"...The Yankees look just about unbeatable right now, don't they?
No comment.
Hey Joe. I just subscribed to substack and I like the look of it! I am wondering if I need to do anything to end my Patreon subscription. Or will it just end because you have ended your affiliation with them? Thanks! I'm looking forward to the next PosCast!!
It was pretty painless to cancel the Patreon. You can just go to the accounts you're supporting and just uncheck Joe's, I think.
Thank you! It will end when I cancel Patreon in July, but if you don't cancel you might get charged for July (I'm trying to work that out).
As a Dodgers fan it feels ridiculous to talk about "heartbreak" given how good the team is and has been, but losing 3 World Series in a row would be... upsetting.
When is the next poscast? Are you and Michael going to resume biweekly schedule at all star break? Thanks!
Yes. We're back in July.
Joe what happened to the shadowball 100? I really liked those posts...
OK, so I haven't explained this ... I need to explain it. I'm still writing and posting the Shadowball 100 pieces. But I've stopped calling it the Shadowball 100 because, in the end, it was too baffling. I had this intricate pattern (which I can explain later) that, in the end, just didn't make a whole lot of sense. So I'm now writing the Shadowball pieces as stand-alones periodically. But I can tell you we will have something really fun coming up starting in August -- another countdown that was part of the Shadowball series. I think it will be really cool.
FWIW I'd like it still to be called the Shadowball series. Trying to figure out the pattern was fun to me. But more than that, I liked the posts being connected to the Baseball 100. I always took the two sets as being tied together, one telling the story of baseball via the 100 best players, and the other filling out the story of baseball, because the real story is bigger and more than just its best players.
Ok that’s fine and all that but I really liked the shadowball series as it was. I know it was confusing...that’s part of what I loved about it. I loved the idea (nonsense though it was) that Rachel Phelps was the 85th best or most important or whatever fictional or baseball character ever. (I know some of the shadowball essays were real people...you get the idea.) the nonsense rankings were part of the silly magic.
It’s later now.
I still never figured out the "pattern".
Nobody could. It was too strange.