Fausto Carmona knew baseball fans had already had enough of pitchers named Roberto Hernandez and Heredia. He was trying to do us a favor.
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Hanging splitter and it’s Pepsi Porch time.
Mike Pelfrey was brilliant, and is easily on his way to his first all-star game.
Luke Gregerson ‘s numbers are ridiculous.
I really would have preferred that Jason Bay drove in Angel Pagan in the 10th, but I’ll take the HR and not complain.
2nd 9 straight home winning streak of the year. Got to love that.
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I was a closet fan (what baseball fan wouldn’t like someone with power (honest power), speed, great defensive ability and a smile on his face) and sure, I played the hell out of his SNES games. But what centerfielders can we compare Ken Griffey Jr. to? I actually think he stands alone, but if I had to say someone…
Having a discussion here: http://operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=78025
I’d say Duke Snider. Two people have said Joe DiMaggio.
Their statements: Crazy talk. Griffey had twice the career of Duke Snider. Also, Dimaggio doesn’t even approach Griffey unless you give him extra credit for the years he missed during the war. Even with them, It’s pretty even. And I’d give Griffey the bonus for playing in a more difficult era.
As a fellow Yankee fan, I love Joe D. But this era has integration, better scouting, and specialists. It’s much harder to dominate now than it was then. I give all the WW2 players extra credit for the years they missed. But Griffey was a far better player than Snider. I’d also put him equal to Joe D.
My statement: Joe Dimaggio is the 2nd greatest right handed hitter of all time (behind Rogers Hornsby) – you are too busy looking at “total” stats, without diving into the real stats. Dimaggio’s hitting ability and his power/lack of strikeouts, puts Dimaggio’s well above Griffey.
Since, you are so into “total” stats, add 2800 ABs to Duke Snider and see how close he comes to Griffey’s “total” stats. I think the AVG,OBP,SLG, OPS, OPS+ fall in closer with Duke Snider than Joe Dimaggio.
and how is Griffey playing is a “more difficult” era? The expansion era with smaller ball parks?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/snidedu01.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/griffke02.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dimagjo01.shtml
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I like that the Mets are giving Chris Carter a chance to show what he can do; it’s refreshing to see them give some ABs to a (relatively) young guy with a good minor-league track record and some possible upside, rather than the usual over-the-hill retreads that Omar loves to dig up (See Frank Catalanotto, Emil Brown, Jeff Conine, Ricky Ledee, Brady Clark, and the corpse of Michael Tucker).
Watching Carter, you can’t help but notice that he’s got some eccentricities, which have led Jerry Manuel to dub him “The Animal.” The guy just can’t sit still. This calls to mind other Mets with unusual mannerisms:
Turk Wendell would wear a shark-tooth necklace, brush his teeth a lot, and jump high over the foul line.
An old baseball card I had of John Pacella noted that he would lose his cap on every pitch, which is confirmed by his Wikipedia page.
Joe McEwing had his gyrations.
Tim Teufel had the Teufel Shuffle (or was it “Seufel”?).
Robby Alomar had his unnecessary slides into first.
Carlos Beltran has his bunts from the 3 hole.
Al Leiter would grunt like Monica Seles after almost every pitch.
Bill Pecota’s last name was later used as an acronym for a system of predicting baseball performance. (Okay, this isn’t really a mannerism, but a good Bill Pecota reference never hurt anyone.)
My favorite baseball idiosyncrasy of all time, though, belongs to U.L. Washington of the Royals, who used to play at all times with a toothpick in his mouth. I always imagine a young Royals fan playing on the little-league lots of Topeka (or wherever) in the early 1980s, emulating his hero U.L. and ending up on the wrong end of a tough-hop grounder with a piece of birchwood lodged in his windpipe. Of course, one could make the argument that – since this imaginary kid chose to pattern himself after U.L. rather than George Brett, Willie Wilson, or Hal McRae – he probably wasn’t getting much oxygen to the brain anyway.
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