Talkin' Baseball

     Today, Talkin' Baseball hit 1,000 career views! Not only is that nice, but it was racing Don Cardwell to 1,000 and won by 163 views. Come celebrate with me! Hooray!

      So, who does this picture look like? The correct answer is nobody. But if I had to choose somebody, who would this cartoon dude resemble most?     There are a number of players who resemble this cartoon guy. This should seem pretty obvious, because he's a cartoon baseball player. But is it? This 'player' doesn't look remotely close to realistic. I mean, look at his biceps.          This observation takes me to the next point. He's wearing red and pinstripes. This player is obviously...     Mark McGwire! He's wearing red (and the Cardinals sometimes wore pinstripes), and you know he got a little bit of help to get biceps that huge.     So yes, I am confident in assuming that the cartoon is meant to be Mark McGwire.      What a stupid topic to write about! Ugh, this writer's block. At least it's semi-interesting and kinda funny.

    I figured I may rant again about the recent failure of the blog. That was pretty fun. Don Cardwell  is taking up so much of my time (and is way more popular), that I'm considering putting this one on a hiatus. I don't know.     So, something really quick I can talk about. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...     Got it: These new uniforms Nike and MLB came up with. Nike Vapor jerseys, to be exact.     These jerseys are supposed to be light and breathable. Rather, people are complaining that they are uncomfortable and ugly. But way worse than the jerseys are...     The pants! Yes, apparently the pants are see-through. I'm not sure which moron had the idea of making your pants so you can see through them. The jerseys, which are bad enough, now bleed through the pants like they're made of glass frog skin. Yeah, this was a total failure, and I don't think they'll be very popular among fans or players.     Well, that was my idea. I hope yo...

     UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHH! Ever since I started Don Cardwell  this blog has been neglected. It has been difficult to juggle all of my schoolwork along with multiple blogs. I am reading American Baseball: From Gentleman's Sport to the Commissioner System. I figured I'd post about it once I finished the book, but that won't be for a while.     Anyway, I don't have a ton to write about right now. If somebody has any ideas (I'm mostly talking to the one person who I know will read the blog), then please tell me.     My baseball season has started up again, which means it's time to clean the dust off of JV Scouting Report . That's the blog that will tell you how my season's going. Hopefully some scouts will see it and I'll be off to the races.     So, I figured I should post on something worth-while on the blog, and failed miserably. However, I was able to promote another one of my blogs and complain about my good fortune. Hope all the reader...

    Why the sudden interest in Kerry Wood? you may ask. Well, I first looked into him when I read a letter that he wrote to someone in the book Every Pitcher Tells a Story (a really good book that I suggest you read). It was then that I found that he was a very interesting player. The letter he wrote this guy was about a phone call he had gotten from Roger Clemens when he tied Rocket's record for strikeouts in a game with 20 (the record still stands, but now is also held by Max Scherzer). Anyway, I just looked him up on good old  Baseball Reference  and found some very interesting things about him.     He won the Rookie of the Year award in 1998, throwing to a 13-6 record and 3.40 ERA. Wood held batters to only a .196 batting average that season. He struck out a league-leading 12.6 batters per nine, and holds a career K/9 of 10.3. Though he had really good strikeout numbers, punching out as many as 266 batters in a season, he had shaky control, walking abou...

    FanGraphs recently came out with their 2024 playoff predictions, and they're interesting. As fairly predictable, they project the division winners to be the Yankees, the Twins, the Astros, the Braves, the Cardinals and the Dodgers. While I'm unsure if the Cards will win their division, I can stand that these are pretty good guesses.      The one that I'm unsure about is the AL West. FanGraphs  projects the reigning champions, the Texas Rangers, to finish third in the division, winning 81.3 games and losing 80.7. They give them a 7.4% chance to win the division, a 35.5% chance to make the playoffs, and a 1.5% chance to repeat a World Series victory. UUUGGGGHHHH...     If these predictions were to come true, I would be a very sad baseball fan, but frankly, I think these predictions stink anyway. For goodness sake, they just won the World Series, and though they lost a good chunk of their bullpen, as well as Mitch Garver (which are both painful),...

      Who's the dapper-looking gentleman who obviously isn't from modern times? His name is Levi Meyerle, and I'll get to his story shortly.     But first, the career of Levi Meyerle. He played 8 seasons, from 1871-1877, and 1884 (when he had 11 ABs). He was a career .356 hitter with 513 hits. He won two batting titles, one in 1871 and one in 1874. I'm focusing on the batting title from 1871.     And now, the moment we've all been waiting for...     Like I said, Levi Meyerle debuted in 1871, and won the batting title. Unfortunately, in the 1870s, there was no Rookie of the Year award for him to win. But he did do something much more impressive than win a ROY. Whilst playing for the Philadelphia Athletics, Meyerle batted .492 in 130 at-bats. This 1871 season made Long Levi the first player to hit .400 against pro pitching.      Very few players have hit .400 in a season (please tell me the exact number if you know), and the feat...

 Well, I have been experiencing horrible writer's block these days, so I guess I'll have to make up something ridiculous and just pray that the public likes it. That's how the What if...? series that I just invented was born. Every now and again, I will post with something completely ridiculous that's baseball related, and ask What if? Why don't we start, eh?     What if... a baseball player was yelled at by his coach and moved down in the lineup for pulling an outside pitch for a home run, while the coach's son was moved up in the batting order for striking out on an outside pitch? Then the coach's excuse for his son was, "Well, he didn't pull it."           I made this one up with some of my teammates at a batting cage practice. One of the players pulled an outside pitch and the coach (normally) told him to try to go the other way with it. Then came the running joke, 'If you pull an outside pitch, you're off the team.'