Tag Archives: MLB

Astros Magic Number Update

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As we enter the stretch drive of the MLB season, Houston finally has something to be excited about other than anticipation of NCAA and NFL football.  The Astros are relevant again and Red will keep you updated.  For the neophytes, a team’s magic number is the combined number of wins (in this case by the Astros) and losses (here by the Rangers) that will clinch either a division title or a wildcard playoff spot.  For example, if the Astros win 20 more games and the Rangers lose 13, the Astros will clinch the division.

Current lead:

4.5 games over the Rangers

Magic Numbers:

33 to clinch AL West Division

32  to clinch Wildcard playoff spot

Astros Baseball

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Red likes baseball but going to more than 5 or 6 games a season starts to seem like work.  Red was out at Minute Maid Park for the second time this season to see the suddenly stagnant Astros against the Detroit Tigers.  But even though they lost, Saturday night was fun because they welcomed back the 2005 NL Champions.  That will be the first and only National League Pennant the ‘Stros will ever win barring another realignment.  Red shares some random observations with the loyal readers:

  1. Luis Valbuena is pretty darn good defensive first baseman. Too bad defensive first basemen are a dime a dozen and there are too many nights when LV can’t hit his way out of a paper bag.
  2. Preston Tucker seemed to catch Ian Kinsler’s sinking line drive to end the 5th inning.  When the call was overturned on replay, the umpire determined that the baserunner would likely have scored from second and the Tigers took a 1-0 lead and the Astros defense was called back into the field.  How do you make a credible determination in real time that the runner would have scored?  If Tucker had come up throwing instead of trying to sell the catch, it could have been a close call at the plate.
  3. The Detroit Tigers’ bat boy is bigger than most of the players.
  4. Orbit looks like he needs a good dry cleaning. Red aint touching that fur.
  5. The Astros’ Dugout Girls (Red has looked for their official name and can’t find it) all have rag arms.  Only one of them can throw a free T-Shirt 12 rows.
  6. The waffle cone stuffed with mashed potatoes and fried chicken with honey mustard is pretty damn good.
  7. Saturday night games should not start at 6:10.
  8. From the 2005 team, Brad Lidge still looks damn good.  Jeff Bagwell – not so much.
  9. If you are picked to sing the National Anthem – don’t start off with God Bless America.  To her credit, the young lady admitted her goof and then belted out a very credible version of the Star Spangled Banner.
  10. It was cool that Brad Ausmus (now Tigers manager) could join his mates from the 2005 team in the pre-game festivities.  Then he had to go ruin the occasion by winning.

Today in Texas History – August 11

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From the Annals of Labor Relations –  In 1994, Major League Baseball players went on strike beginning the longest work stoppage in major league history.  The strike resulting in the cancellation of the World Series – the first time the baseball season did not end with a champion in 89 years.

Major League owners had the most enduring control over their players of any American sports league.  Until 1975, the reserve clause had effectively killed any notion of free agency in baseball and kept player salaries artificially low.  By 1994, the main source of conflict was the owners’ plan  to institute a cap on player salaries.  Making unproven claims of financial hardship, owners argued that player salaries had become unsustainable.  The players, led by union head Donald Fehr, refused to agree to a cap.

The level of distrust had been exacerbated by the 1985 secret agreement of the owners to not sign one another’s players.  The pact was remarkably successful in practice as all 28 major league teams sat tight for three seasons.  When the illegal conspiracy was discovered, the players’ union sued and won a $280 million judgment. Consequently, when the collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the Players Association expired in 1994 negotiations for a new deal were difficult. On August 12, the petulant and peeved owners locked the players out, and cancelled the rest of the 1994 season.

No progress during the off-season and on the eve of the new baseball season, 28 of 30 owners voted to field replacement teams.  On March 31, Judge Sonia Sontomayor stepped in, issuing an injunction against the owners. On April 2, 1995, the players returned to work.

Astros fans have long claimed that the strike robbed Jeff Bagwell of a landmark season.  Bagwell was hitting .368 with 39 home runs through the date of the strike.  But he had broken his hand on August 10 when he was hit by an Andy Benes pitch in the top of the third inning.  The real losers were the Montreal Expos who were 74-40 and cruising through the NL East at the time of the strike.  The franchise never recovered.

Today in Texas History – July 31

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From the Annals of the National Pastime –  In 1990, Nolan Ryan posted his 300th career win.  Pitching for the Texas Rangers, Ryan threw 7 2/3 innings with eight strikeouts in an 11-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. His historic 300th victory came in his 24th season in the majors, his second with the Texas Rangers.  Ryan had failed in his first bid for a 300th win the week before, pitching at his home stadium in Arlington, Texas. His second attempt came against the Brewers in front of a friendly crowd in Milwaukee. Ryan improved as the game went on, and by the fifth inning, the Rangers had taken a 5-1 lead. Ryan rung up two strikeouts in the fifth, one in the sixth and two more in the seventh inning. With two outs in the eighth, a defensive error put two runners on base, but with a crowd of 55,000 rooting him on, Ryan once again summoned the fastball that had won him 299 previous games. The talented young Gary Sheffield popped-out on a 96 mile-per-hour fastball to end the inning. After the Rangers tacked on insurance runs and the bullpen closed it out for an 11-3 win, Ryan became the fourth-oldest 300-game winner in baseball history after Phil Neikro, Gaylord Perry and Early Wynn.

The End TImes are Near, Cont.

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The new baseball lawsuit (see entry immediately below) seeking to have the net extended from foul pole to foul pole in all MLB parks got Red to wondering about deaths from foul balls.  And of course with the miracle of the internets and some people having way too much time on their hands, the answer to Red’s question was only moments away.

Sports Nut (Joe Mooallem) at Slate offers a review of a 2008 book,  Death at the Ballpark: A Comprehensive Study of Game Related Fatalities of Players, Other Personnel and Spectators in Amateur and Professional Baseball, 1862-2007 by Robert Gorman and David Weeks.  One can only wonder at the motivation for creating this apparently exhaustive study which is certain to not make the NY Times Bestseller list. According to Slate, “The authors say their aim was to “raise awareness” about baseball’s many dangers, but there aren’t any recommendations for making the sport safer here, no real signs of impassioned outrage, and no warnings to suburban parents about aluminum bats.”   Red isn’t exactly running out to get a copy, but the review does offer this interesting fact.

Fatal fastballs to the head, meanwhile, aren’t nearly as common as you’d expect. In the past 150 years, only one fan at a major league baseball game has been killed by a foul ball—a 14-year-old in Los Angeles named Alan Fish. The liner that fractured Fish’s skull came off the bat of Dodger pinch-hitting specialist Manny Mota, whose own teenage nephew would be killed 14 years later while playing shortstop in New York—a coincidence Gorman and Weeks don’t stop to note. Mota’s nephew, a high-schooler, was struck by lightning as he stood in the field, five minutes after the umpire announced he was going to call the game at the end of the inning.

Of course, others have been injured and some seriously by flying bats and balls, but the risk of actual death from sitting along the baselines appears to be pretty small.   But if your number is up, just hope you are sitting next to this guy.

The End Times are Near, Cont.

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Yahoo Sports relates that Gail Payne, an Oakland A’s season ticket holder, has filed a lawsuit seeking to have MLB clubs install foul pole to foul pole netting to protect fans from foul balls, broken bats and the occasional errantly expelled chaw spit.   A Houston law firm, Hilliard Munoz Gonzalez is representing Payne, but a website asks other season ticket-holders to contact another firm handling the case, Seattle-based Hagens Berman.

”Every type of fan is constantly at risk of serious injury or death,” claims attorney Robert Hilliard. ”If that foul ball is hit hard enough, reaction time is basically zero and life-threatening injury is certain. This is a needless risk. Extending the nets will, as a fact, save lives.”

If you want to sit in good seats, you must be willing to pay attention to the game.  If you can’t do that, sit in the outfield or the nosebleeds.