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Wezen-Ball |
Wezen-Ball: MLB's Broadcast Dispute |
A minor league team once tried to stop Boston games from being broadcast in a 50 mile radius of Springfield, MA.
It was announced last week that a group of fans from around the country are suing Major League Baseball and its partners over the way broadcast rights are enforced, alleging an abuse of monopoly power. From the AP report:
May 11, 2012 7:53 am
Wezen-Ball: Soviet Scouts Take in a Game |
In 1990, Ron Gant had the best game of his career while a group of Soviet children were in the stands.
In the summer of 1990, the Boy Scouts of America hosted a cultural exchange with a Soviet youth group called the Young Pioneers. This was at a time when people would still refer to a group of young Russian kids as "Soviets". Eight of the sixteen Soviet kids spent two weeks in Atlanta (in early July) while the other eight got to visit Chicago. The American scouts were sent to Moscow. Someone drew the short end of the stick there.
During their time in America, the Soviet children were exposed to everything that was sweeping the nation at the time—basically, that means Bart Simpson and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If this cultural exchange produced nothing else (and we can only pray that it didn't result in another "Red Heat"-style movie), it definitely brought the phrase "Cowabunga, dude!" across the Iron Curtain. "Don't have a cow, man" may have proved too difficult to pronounce for the Russians.
May 10, 2012 9:23 am
Wezen-Ball: Covering an All-Star Team |
Inspired by Big Daddy's cover of "A Day in the Life", an attempt at finding subtly-similar players to the 1983 AL All-Star team.
May 4, 2012 12:02 am
Wezen-Ball: Canseco's Last Stand |
In light of Jose Canseco's latest Twitter ramblings, a quick look at how exactly his career ended.
On Wednesday, Jose Canseco took Twitter to ask a special favor of his fans (and haters):
April 30, 2012 8:05 am
Wezen-Ball: How to Give the Game Back to Its Fans |
A 1957 list of not very good ideas for how to give the "game back to its fans."
In 1957, Cleveland Press sportswriter Franklin Lewis was disillusioned with how the game of baseball was changing. It was getting too modern, too far from its roots, too corporate. Major League Baseball was losing its fans. Night games? Television? Ballplayers hocking cigarettes? Night games?!?! Games that were played in the dark?! That just wasn't how baseball should be, thought Franklin Lewis (who was born in 1904).
In response, Lewis penned a 21-point plan that appeared in Baseball Digest called "How to Give the Game Back to Its Fans". It was, in all honesty, full of terrible ideas. Here's a brief look at Lewis' list:
April 27, 2012 8:17 am
Wezen-Ball: Google Wars |
How does a Google search for, say, "Dodgers" differ between the US and the non-baseball world?
Our view of the world is a bit skewed, especially as Baseball Prospectus readers. For us, it's baseball here, baseball there—we probably even see baseballs in scoops of ice cream or in sunrises. A close encounter of the third kind would likely bring us face to face with Babe Ruth or Harmon Killebrew as we carve Yankee Stadium out of a pile of mashed potatoes. A day without baseball is a day wasted.
But ours is a limited view of the real world. There are whole countries and whole continents who couldn't care less about the infield-fly rule or if Mariano Rivera has gone back to wearing high socks. It's a sad world, yes, but it's a world that exists nonetheless.
April 26, 2012 9:06 am
Wezen-Ball: Baiting an Umpire - with Glue! |
A quick story from the 1930s or 1940s, when a player was thrown out for gluing a newspaper photo to home plate.
From the September 1965 issue of "Baseball Digest", comes this story of umpires making mistakes and the consequences when players can't get over it:
April 22, 2012 10:24 am
Wezen-Ball: The Cubs, the A's, and a Music Video |
An amazing music video featuring a World Series game between the Cubs and the A's was unearthed recently.
It was 1992. The Oakland A's, behind Tony La Russa, Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, and the Bash Brothers, were only a year removed from a three-year run in the World Series. The Cubs, meanwhile, had been to the playoffs once in eight years, and Greg Maddux was only just beginning his stretch as the greatest pitcher alive. Away from sports, Garth Brooks had friends in low places, Pearl Jam was destroying the charts, and Uncle Jesse was breaking little girls' hearts all over the world. Not to be forgotten, Chicago Cubs fan Richard Marx was dreaming of a World Series win for the North Siders.
From this early-'90s potpurri, a music video was born. No, it wasn't "Jeremy" or even that silly Beach Boys video that had Uncle Jesse up on stage drumming. Not even close.
April 18, 2012 10:39 am
Wezen-Ball: Todd McFarlane Predicts Barry Zito's Future |
A June 2003 article about comic mogul Todd McFarlane contains an eerie prediction about Barry Zito.
In a June 2003 article about comic book mogul Todd McFarlane—the man who created Spawn, bought Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball for $3 million, and who surprisingly enjoys drawing attention to himself—this exchange between McFarlane and 2002 American League Cy Young winner and future $126 million Train vocalist Barry Zito was recorded:
April 16, 2012 11:58 pm
Wezen-Ball: A Negro Leaguer's Execution |
From One for Five comes the story of James Hugh Moss, whose execution in 1928 had some question marks attached to it.
Over at the blog One for Five comes the story of an ex-Negro League ballplayer named James Hugh Moss, who was executed by the State of Georgia in August 1928. Not much is known about Moss as a ballplayer. The newspaper accounts of the crime he was put to death for mention his past playing history, but only in passing. The recent influx of Negro Leagues information at Baseball Reference also isn't much help, but even that is admittedly incomplete. Some sites mention an entry of "Moss" in James Riley's Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. The Moss in the encyclopedia pitched for the Chicago American Giants in 1918. It's impossible to say if the ballplayer referenced is James Hugh Moss, but we do know the sad story of how Moss's life ended—even if the circumstances that led to it are very questionable.
As it stands, Moss was convicted, along with Clifford Thompson and his wife Eula Mae Thompson (both white), for the murder of Coleman Osborne. It seems that the three murderers/conspirators were in the bootlegging business to some degree. One night, they stopped the car they were using to haul whiskey near Osborne's home. Someone met Osborne at the door of his general store, there was some shouting, and Osborne was shot dead. The court found the three bootleggers guilty and ordered them to death by electric chair.
April 13, 2012 6:05 am
Wezen-Ball: Fenway Illustrated, circa 1946 |
A Sporting News illustration of Fenway Park in 1946 gives us a taste of history we may have forgotten.
April 9, 2012 12:35 am
Wezen-Ball: A Peek at My Scorecard |
Some comments in a BPro chat last week inspired me to share my scorecard from a recent game.
On Thursday, during our all-day, Opening Day chat marathon, I made a casual observation about Prince Fielder bobbling a ball at first-base and tossing it to the pitcher for the out rather than running to the bag himself:
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