biggentleben

Not going to argue that, just seemed like he picked perfect people to interview along with dozens of versions of a theme song throughout the documentary with excellent side stories on players. Like I said, they're all pretty darned good.

The comment on there something like: "In a draft like this, you know the top pick will be a big bust." Pure gold.

Another thing to consider. Shoeless Joe, whose main guilt was being present at a meeting as all evidence was that he returned every dime given him by gamblers, has never had a serious consideration for the Hall of Fame. Folks can love Pete Rose all they want, but he'd never get my vote until Shoeless Joe got in, someone banned for the same offense, but with no actual proof he did it, unlike Rose.

IMO, that is one of the greatest documentaries I have ever seen, baseball fan or not. I have watched his other stuff, and it's amazing as well, but there's just something extra in his interviews for Baseball that are only present in his Jazz documentary, and that one lacked the story of Baseball. I own the collection, and it is one of my prizes in my DVD collection for sure. There was a rumor as Bonds neared Hammerin' Hank that he was going to do a documentary on the home run in baseball and how it has changed, but I don't think that ever got beyond idea status. I, for one, would be very interested to watch that.

Florimon actually looked terribly lost defensively. He allowed Adam Jones' SB by being still in position as Jones ran when he was obviously the one who was supposed to move. If he's there in the right spot, Jones may have been out. Then he had another play where he put the ball in his pocket rather than make a fairly routine throw to complete the out. He did get a hit, though, so...yay?

Not so nice at the game. It was chilly as heck or else the sun beat down on you, so you couldn't have anything stable. There was a very drunk jerk on his bachelor party in our section that was cursing and being rude all game long. He bellowed out "Let's see that warning track power, Mauer!" exactly one pitch before Mauer went yard. He didn't say another word the rest of the game.

If done properly, a head first slide actually gets you to the base faster than a feet first slide. There's at least one catastrophic injury per year from sliding feet first as well. Sliding in any manner is more apt to cause injury than running without sliding, so why slide anyway? Obviously being silly with the comp, but it's a slippery slope you're discussing here, especially when there is actually a positive effect of sliding head-first if it's done properly.

My brother was actually on air for WNAX a few years back, and he just recently turned down a job with them to take another Ag Journalism job in DC. He was wanting to be a sports broadcaster, but found out how poor that pays in comparison.

Figured you meant Sonny Gray. Not sure anyone can rip them at this point regardless as those players are still in the minors. That Appel hasn't leaped forward isn't their fault as the teams who had other picks very likely would have made the same pick. Correa was another story, but even then, it's hard to rip them too much for that overall draft, which is what made Correa the #1 pick, part of the beauty of the current system for the draft.

Gray was 2011. They picked 11th that year and grabbed Springer.

You'd bench Mike Trout?!

I'm not going to dog the writer of the post for his choices or anything, but I equate "Mount Rushmore" lists with YOLO or planking - fads that should just stop. Baseball's played with 9 players, so a fun exercise would be the best starting nine for the team in its history. Football definitely doesn't work, but there's plenty on Twitter on that as well. Basketball is the one where a lot of this mess started, but it also has 5 players on the court, so really, the argument should be whether Russell or Chaimberlain is best, or if a modern center like David Robinson or Shaq could lay claim to the title. These things are Bleacher Report quality discussions, which is fodder for the KFAN and STrib boards, hopefully not here!

I would never support purely blaming weightlifting. A big part of it is in general that baseball trainers believe that they cannot learn anything from any other sport, for some reason. Greg Shepherd called baseball the "last frontier of common sense weight training" 15 years ago, and I've not experienced or heard anything that has shown change in that. Oblique injuries are a lot more common now, and a lot of that has to do with improper focus on specific training rather than whole body training. Heck, the power in a swing or pitch is primarily from the bottom of the butt to the bottom of the rib cage, but look at the guys who seem to hit the weights at the professional level - they focus completely on their arms, chest, and shoulders. I would put a few key factors into why we "see" more TJ surgery: 1) Incredibly more media coverage and interest in fantasy baseball leading to a lot more knowledge about the surgeries. Thrylos' numbers show that while the numbers are higher the last three seasons, they're not drastically higher than 15 years ago. 2) Increased focus on velocity. A guy who tops out at 90mph is seen as a "soft-tosser" in the modern game. It's interesting to consider whether Jamie Moyer would have ever gotten a chance in the modern game at all, let alone until he was old enough to get AARP mailings. Focus on velocity has reduced the focus on proper mechanics and training as long as the arm can generate high-end velocity. 3) Increased utilization of breaking pitches and overall pitch counts at a young age. A pitcher on an American Legion team when I was that age would pitch roughly 15-20 games if he was really good in the course of a summer. Now there is high school, traveling games, showcase events, etc. One anonymous pitcher in a recent draft estimated that his total pitches thrown (he was a 4-year college pitcher) was in the range of 30,000 pitches in his lifetime to that point with roughly 10,000 of those being non-fastballs. The pitcher was cited as a control and command fastball/changeup pitcher in the podcast I heard on these numbers, so his non-fastball count was likely quite low compared to many other pitchers. I don't see this reversing as most people don't really see an issue here. They want the 95 mph throwing starter with three offspead/breaking pitches as well, and it's hard to see with current baseball training that focus on heavy early workload and focus on velocity would lead to any change in arm health for pitchers.

Every swing of his is worthy of this thread, and the best part is he and Santana are good friends, and they were joking between pitches of each at bat, especially after Santana got a rare hit off of Colon early in the game.

Baseball Prospectus has been tracking this and discussed it during their Wednesday email show on Effectively Wild. The percentage of bunts or "slap hits" against a shift increased by almost double in 2013 over 2012. There will always be some in the Ted Williams mode of "hit through the shift", but many (even including David Ortiz) have multiple cross-shift hits in the season already.

It is a blessing to live in a society where we can only associate hoods with Klan members. The truth of Aaron's life (and many of those today in the South in places) is that a hood has nothing to do with Klan. It has to do with people too ashamed of their own actions to show their faces when they perform acts of bigotry and hatred. Many who didn't associate at all with the KKK utilized hoods when they performed their acts of hatred. What Henry was referring to is the boldness of which blatant racism is performed in today's society, yet not seen as such because the men are adorned in suits and ties and seemingly proud of themselves for their actions. If anything, it could be seen as a step backward, not forward.

The Braves for, oh, the last 20 years? The Athletics have had trouble in the last few seasons, and the Dodgers had a number of games short of sellout during August/September of last season. So there are a number of teams that are not only good teams right now, but have teams set up that should be competitive for some time and are struggling with ticket sales.

They don't know how to riot. Real rioting was 2002 when they had three riots at the same time - one in Dinkytown, one near the Superblock, and one at Seven Corners!

Whether you would have fallen for it or not, the sentiment about his intelligence is spot on. The man had ridiculous natural talent, but he would never listen to anyone on working at better learning the strike zone to become a more complete hitter.

I couldn't off the top of my head, though I saw it while researching my article. The funny part on Tom House is that it was literally the only batted ball that he caught on the fly in his major league career, according to him. I've never done the research to see if that's true, but he says he knocked down any other ball ever hit to him, never catching a ball other than Hank's homer. Of course, he was also a pitching coach for many years as well. Oh, and the count was 1-0

While attempting to not utilize b-ref, what was the count when 715 was hit? Who caught the ball in the Braves' bullpen, and why was it such a memorable catch? Here's a very, very cool picture of the event from Life magazine showing multiple exposures overlapped into one: http://timelifeblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/hank-aaron-715-atlanta-multiple-exposure.jpg?w=682

But I also did an article on today on Tomahawktake - http://tomahawktake.com/2014/04/08/remembering-hank-aaron-moment/

Buckner - he ended up getting MVP votes that season even

Ortiz has said multiple times that he became the hitter he did with the tutelage of Ron Jackson, who worked with him a lot when he came over. Regardless, you're talking about a guy who the Red Sox signed to be a platoon DH, not even a full-time starter. Any rip on the Twins on the topic is simply pollyanic.

Braves are 2/2 in challenges...long live replay! And down with the Nationals!