The New Scoresheets Are Here!

I’ve had some free time open up recently that pulls me away from my current behind-the-scenes SP78 work, so I’ve taken the opportunity to begin adding to the collection of game scoresheets found in the Classic Scoresheets section of the SP78 Museum header on the main page. Here you’ll find some of the more interesting, more memorable, and overall favorite scoresheets from my season; a short description of the game can be found under each thumbnail image, and if you click on the image, you’ll get a larger view, plus a brief history of the game and/or scoresheet underneath.

I last updated the page with a scoresheet from the game played during the trip my friend Steve P and I took to see the 1987 All-Star Game in Oakland, though I never did type up a history for it. That history has now been added; six additional scoresheets and their histories have also been added, with more to come over the next several days. And though I solved the earlier problem of a blank gap between the thumbnail images, it has now happened again, so I’ll be working on that little irritant as well.

Eventually, I hope to have over fifty scoresheets available to view on the site, with a few more sprinkled among the existing sheets when I get them scanned and finalized. Keep an eye on the Recent Site Updates column on the bottom-right side of the main page to keep track of my progress.

Interesting SP78 Ejection Factoids

In an e-mail I’d sent to my friend Steve P a few weeks back, I told him about a recent Statis Pro game I’d played, between the Pirates and Astros, where Bucs slugger Willie Stargell had been hit by a pitch thrown by Houston starter Vern Ruhle, after Stargell had homered two innings earlier. I was ready to have Stargell rush the mound in response, and prepared to eject both batter and pitcher from the game, but then I wondered: had Stargell ever been tossed in his career? I looked it up and found out that no, he hadn’t. So I sent him to first, and I ejected Ruhle instead, and that was that.

I’d also discovered that Robin Yount, another SP78er, had never been ejected, and he ranked #4 on the list—behind Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Brooks Robinson—of non-expelled players who’d played more than 1,500 games in their careers. Steve responded to my e-mail a short while later, and he included a list that he’d compiled while researching my site, titled Interesting SP78 Ejection Factoids. I thought it would make for a fun and informative post, so here it is (all numbers are current through August 18th).

SP78’s New Avatar

As some of you may have noticed, I changed my SP78 avatar photo about a week ago, replacing a rather smug looking photo of myself with one of actor Robert Redford from the movie The Natural. I decided to make the change a few years back, but wanted to wait until the 5th Anniversary of my movie blog site, Cinema Monolith, before putting it into use.

This change was made because, thanks to WordPress, if I replace one site’s avatar, it replaces the other one as well. Thus, my plan to change my movie site’s avatar to one of Clint Eastwood from Dirty Harry didn’t quite mesh with my baseball site (nor did one I considered from a personal cult movie favorite of mine, Curse of Bigfoot). So, I came up with an idea for an avatar that equally portrayed both site’s themes, which of course was a photo from a baseball movie.

So there you have it: my new avatar, a photo of a happy Roy Hobbs putting on his Knights baseball cap. And in case you’re wondering, no, I never once considered using a screenshot from Here Come the Tigers instead.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Bench!