mikelink45

Wait and see. Is this what we had in mind as we anticipated the FO changes and actions? Are we just waiting to see if we get Darvish or are we waiting for something else? We can have all the statistics possible and even make up some, but if the live arm is not good enough, if the control is lacking, if the assortment of pitches is not adequate the stats are not going to get anyone out.

I love these old stories - I laughed before I even got to the punch line.

Here is Mudcat on an old 45 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=QoL9wBmZg2c

I read this list of roving, coaching, coaching the coaches, coaches and wonder why. I really have a difficult time seeing how they all have functional tasks and avoid getting in one another's way.

Last night I was doing research for a lecture I am going to give when I guide a trip to Nashville next fall. Nashville is most famous for the Grand Ole Opry and performers like Bill Monroe so I was looking at the history of Blue Grass – Monroe is the acknowledged creator of this form of music – and all of a sudden I was into baseball. Hard to imagine, but when a lecturer and college instructor begins researching the path can lead a number of directions. The passage from the book, Bluegrass, by Neil Rosenberg caught my attention was: “ At about this time Monroe added a new dimension to his show, taking advantage of his love of baseball to reconstitute the band as a baseball team. While the crew setting up the tent show finished their job (they traveled in advance of the band), Monroe or one of his band members would issue a challenge to the local ball club. Fiddler Jim Shumate, with Monroe in 1944-1945, recalls that “we had good crowds just for a ball game. We had a lot of fun. We played for keeps and had a good team. We had uniforms and everything. I played shortstop.” Former pro-ball player Clyde Moody pitched and Monroe, who would, but for his poor sight, “have liked to be a baseball player”…” They would often have their tent show music right at the ball field and after the concert the musicians would change clothes and the ball game would commence. One of the band members said that “having the ball team was good for our spirit; it helped build morale in the band.” These road trips could be up to six months long and that wears on any performer so diversion was very important. The concerts were very popular and the games probably drew more fans than most minor league games did. Monroe liked it so much that he formed two ball teams, one permanently in Nashville called the Bluegrass Ballclub, and one that toured – the Bluegrass All-Stars. This was the age of barnstorming teams – image Ruth and Gehrig coming to your town to play against a local team! It was also an age when every town had a team. America was truly the National Past time and Monroe’s teams fit right in with the era. They would drive 3000 miles a week making their tent shows and ball games, always getting back to Nashville for Saturday night on Grand Ole Opry. With 5 or 6 games a week the team would play over 110 games a year. Monroe loved to reminisce about the club, “When we would come to bat, we had two men that could, mind you, get on base. They was hard to get out. The third man, you couldn’t strike him out hardly at all – he could hit that ball. The cleanup man and the fifth man was mighty at drivin’ in runs. It was hard to get by them first five men up there. And we also had two men who could steal home.” Monroe was not the first nor the only one to have a ball team. Louis Armstrong had a team called the Secret Nine and Cab Calloway Band’s team included both Cab and his bass player. These two black owned teams were before Monroe, but what set Monroe apart was the fact that he was White and no other white bands did this at that time. Later Tom Dorsey would sponsor a team as well as Lionel Hampton and Harry James. Monroe’s biggest regret was that his team was scheduled to play The House of David Team and they cancelled the game. He really wanted that one, it would have felt like the majors to him. Monroe had arranged to have Dizzy Dean play for them if that game had taken place. By the 1950s television changed things. Fewer fans went to see minor league teams play and there were fewer town ball teams. Monroe said, “It seemed like baseball kinda played out. I don’t really know what happened to it right there, but a in a lot of cities it just stopped.” Television would create new issues for the nation and for the sport. New revenue streams, more rich and poor teams, access to MLB in minor league cities. Monroe looked back at this change and said, “They’re a lot alike-it seems like the people that loves baseball are the people that loves bluegrass music.” It is hard to imagine any sport being so ingrained into a national psyche the way baseball was. Maybe soccer in most countries has this status now, but in the first half of the twentieth century baseball was everywhere and the ultimate trip to the majors came through townball, school sports, semi-pro, minor league, independent leagues and finally the limited sixteen major league teams. The best of competitive athletes were baseball players. http://research.sabr.org/journals/bluegrass-baseball-barnstorming-band-and-ball-club https://muse.jhu.edu/article/266309/pdf

As a person who has consistently said prove it I can add this to a lot of decisions that have not impressed me. Which might mean that I am just another fan who does not get it. But this maneuver is one that just does not have anything that even looks like it could be one of those - I guess I knew best - moments for the FO. ​We have had a lot of isn't that clever notes, but this is one of those - it really isn't clever ones.

No.I like him, but we have a roster full of possible extensions and still a lot of holes to plug. Somewhere we need to maintain some flexibility. Keep signing him, but don't make a long term commitment.

I am sure you are right. Like many of the players he had different jobs between seasons, but I think he finished with Coca Cola. Thanks for the note.

Boy were the times different. Isn’t that Lounge singer Denny McLain? Why is Bobby Veach mining for Coal between seasons. When comparing athletes from different generations there so many obstacles that statistics just cannot stand up. When someone quotes WAR for a player from the first half of the twentieth century to compare them with current players I have to believe that the person doing so knows it is a ridiculous exercise. It was not only how they were used in the games, the equipment, training, and philosophy of the day, it was where sports ranked in society. A recent conversation with Author/singer Douglas Wood had us both reminiscing about driving to International Falls and getting our gas tanks filled by Bronko Nagurski, the Canadian born young man grew up in the woods, lumber camps and hard work were common for him and his Ukrainian parents. He went on to be in the inaugural class of inductees in both the Professional and the College Football Hall of Fames and was a giant in professional wrestling, but he was always a small town guy running his own gas station and putting on the gas caps to tight that people had to come back to Bronko’s to buy more gas since no one else could loosen the cap. It is a good legend. But what Doug and I both remember is that parents would want to have their young sons shake hands with Bronko. His ring size of 19 ½ might help understand how you would see your hand literally disappear inside his big mitt. But he was not the only working man professional athlete. We know minor leaguers still get jobs that put them in mainstream society, but this article https://prestonjg.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/off-season-jobs-of-major-league-baseball-players-in-the-winter-of-1958-59/ gives a list of 1958 jobs including Hall of Famers like Eddie Mathews and Early Wynn running construction companies, and Nellie Fox running a bowling alley. What a time that was! No they were not just doing it for publicity. In those days salaries and revenues did not allow for 12 month athletes with personal trainers. Smoky Burgess drove a lumber truck and Stan Musial had a bowling alley and a number of businesses to manage, but during the 1940s he sold Christmas Trees from a lot with Red Schoendienst and other Cardinal stars. Roy Campenella ran a liquor store. Jim Palmer pitched a shut out in the World Series and then sold furniture for the winter. Try to imagine Yogi Berra selling you hardware in a Sears store or working as a head waiter in a restaurant you frequent. Or you could buy flowers at Lou Brock’s floral shop. Roger Bresnahan worked as a detective in the off season. When Waite Hoyt was a young player he worked in a mortuary In the winter and Eddie Plank gave tours of the Gettysburg battlefield. Jackie Robinson made his winter dollars selling appliances and doing barnstorming. And both Willie Mays and Willie McCovey sold cars! Our Minnesota Twins took work seriously too – Bob Allison sold cars and real estate and I would love to have some help filling out the resume’s of our early Twins players.

Obviously now on my Christmas gift list.

I just got down another bottle. The excitement is getting hard to contain.

Okay, I am fine with this, but I hope it is not the signature move of the winter meetings. I hope this is one of those nice assets after signing the guys who we really need.

Wonderful - I will continue to celebrate.

You could be right about what he drank - I was too young then to be accurate on what was in the glass, but I certainly remember him enjoying something - here is a fun video - https://vimeo.com/113401282 - but I have since learned - gin and onions was the Hall drink of choice.

In the swirl of praise for infrastructure work the FO is still way behind in showing me the things I am most interested in - the players on the field. Signing Pineda did nothing for me, the loss of Burdi and Bard and the pick up of Kinley are quite confusing. I hoped some of you with better stat magic at hand could show me why I should have a better opinion of this surge in activity. At this stage, if I understand our not so Hot Stove season - we have hired lots of new coaches and filled more cubicles in the office - but of course we have no metrics to judge these moves. We have Lost Belisle, Burdi, and Bard and added Kinley - which is no where close to break even. Out starting staff got a man who will not pitch in 2018 giving us a wonderful rotation on the DL and minimum expectations for 2019. What other excitement am I missing?

Thanks for the invite. If I do not make it, it is the 110 mile drive not the name!

I admire Sabr, BUT Halsey was best with a cigar, a whiskey, and an audience. I can still hear his laugh in my memory and also the stories that would go from inning to inning until he forgot what he was talking about. If there was ever a broadcaster that was meant for the hot stove league, when they really did sit around the old hot stove, he is it.

Yuch! I am really not excited by this. Maybe we want that Yankee look of Hughes and Pineda in 2019. We rehab and he moves on. If we have not filled out the rotation so that he would be without a position by 2019 the FO will have failed. Lets stop being the clever boys on the block and sign what we need to fill the holes that we have now and develop the young players for 2019.

I am amused by your group name. Having grown up with Halsey as the cigar smoking, hacking, raspy voice behind the old time stories and lots of laughter. It there is someone who does not represent Sabr thinking I believe Halsey would be an icon!

Use the relief arms we have - get a good starter and we will be in good shape.

Thanks for the look at Ben - I do enjoy the popeye comparison! It would be terrific he he is another Mauer type of player who moves up quickly. Especially with Catchers it is nice to see them advance before their legs give in to the squats that they live with. I am recovering from a replaced Knee right now and the physically therapy I do is a tough reminder of what we expect out of the knees. The Popeye arms are great, but the wear and tear of daily games - even just warm ups - is a career damaging inevitability.

YAWN I believe we need a daily reminder that the winter meetings have started because the amount of interesting things that have happened are not setting the hot stove league thermostat very high. Maybe they can retrade Stanton again or introduce him with a different jersey or may Ohtani can talk about hitting and pitching again and again....

I appreciate editors and moderators. This site has become a fun community where I like to dip in and sample the ideas and offerings of both writers and commentators and I appreciate the broad presentation styles and opportunities. ​Thank you to all the TD staff.

We have all heard the complaints (legitimate to me) about the use of names like Redskins, Indians, and Braves professional sports teams. I will not go into the reason these are offensive and the degrees of offensiveness attached to each. What I am interested in is where the Indians are when it comes to the ball field. The photo I have put up with this is from my relatives in WI. I found the following list of American Indian professional players - http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/american_indian_baseball_players.shtml. Louis Sockalexis is the first, a Penobscot from Maine, who played in the 1897 – 1899 era and the massacre at Wounded Knee was in 1890 – perhaps the end of the major plains wars. The last acknowledge battle was 1914 in Utah – Ute/Mormon war. So imagine we have an Indian playing baseball in the major leagues and other Indians performing in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. How crazy is history. Louis was a track and football star like soon to be legend – Jim Thorpe, but his career was derailed by alcoholism, but his athletic feats were still prodigious and if racism did not mix with alcohol he might have been more than a footnote in our history. Erroneously he is credited with the Cleveland Indian name – he played for the Cleveland Spyders. As the following short biography describes he was certainly an influence on the name - http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2b1aea0a Out of 48 American Indian Ballplayers 29 played by the year 1930. The most famous includes Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox nations, who is often cited as the greatest athlete in American History. His greatest fame came when he won the decathlon and the, now defunct, pentathlon in the same Olympics (1912) and recognized as the world’s greatest athlete. He was a star in the Carlisle Indian School where he played football at the highest level as a running back, kicker, and defensive back. He is in the Football hall of fame. His baseball career was less well documented and sad. He lost his Olympic metals for playing professional baseball for the New York Giants and because he did not understand the connection that existed at that time he had given up his amateur status and lost his Olympic medals because of those seasons (which included a world series). As a very poor man from a destitute family he was simply earning the money he needed to survive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe The baseball Hall of Fame includes another famous Indian – Albert (Chief) Bender – the pitcher that Connie Mack said he wanted on the mound for any and all important games. He pitched for the Philadelphia Athletics and distinguished himself as a true Ace. Bender was from the village of Crow Wing, near Brainerd, MN and a member of the Ojibwe nation. Chief Meyers (notice the nickname pattern) was a Cahuilla Indian from CA and played 10 years for the New York Giants (principally) with a nice but not Hall of fame career. Looking through the remainder of the list there are some very recognizable names who are listed as American Indian – Pepper Martin of the Cardinal Gashouse Gang, Rudy York, who starred for the Tigers, Cal McLish, Choctawm who I got to see pitch for the Indians, and recently – Kyle Lohse, Nomlaki Wintun, Jacoby Ellsbury, Navajo, and Joba Chamberlain, Winnebago. Today’s players are seldom acknowledged by baseball for their heritage, it is an important part of who they are. Again, I have no idea what percent their heritage is to make this list. But the point I would like to make is that we have lost a lot of potential on the Indian Reservations due to lots of errors in our cultural wars and from a baseball perspective we have made a mistake by not investing in the reservations to develop new players for the future. We have clinics in the Caribbean, and in South America, but nothing on the major reservations. With the money generated by the logos and teams that carry the Indian culture as a part of their corporate structure, shouldn’t they pay a royalty to the tribes, maybe through scholarships or baseball schools. Out multi-racial baseball landscape needs to include all races and this is an opportunity that has been overlooked for too long.

I understand that and I would not say it is unimportant, but we have no metrics to measure the moves of FO personnel. Right now we know a lot has changed and we hope it is a good change, but when will we know? Until recently there were only 4 GMs in the HOF and I suspect it is because we do not know how to really measure their performance.http://a.espncdn.com/mlb/columns/bp/1399247.html Scheurholtz and Duquette have now joined them, but why? There is no clearcut tool - longevity, winning teams, owners with big checkbooks????????????