Caldwell Earns 20th as Brewers Topple Tribe 9-1

Milwaukee Brewers ace Mike Caldwell became the first pitcher of the SP78 Replay season to reach the 20-win mark, allowing just one run on eight hits and going the distance in a convincing 9-1 victory over the Indians, in the first game of a ‘Ladies Night’ doubleheader at Milwaukee.

Caldwell (20-4) found himself involved in a pitching duel early on with Tribe starter Sid Monge (0-5), with Monge allowing just two hits to Caldwell’s four over the first four innings. But while Caldwell stayed strong into the eighth, Monge fell apart in the fifth, coughing up four earned runs thanks to Gorman Thomas’ 22nd home run of the season, a grand slam that just cleared the short County Stadium wall in left. It was his first slam of the SP78 season, and the third of his five-year career.

To read more about the game, make comments, and see a few photos, click here.

The SP78 40th Hit List

No, I’m not talking about base hits…I’m talking about the 13 classic rock hits that played on 92.5 FM, The Fox throughout the SP78 40th Anniversary game on August 22nd. Like I’d done with the game Steve P and I played in Connecticut during our baseball trip to the New England states in 2015, I kept track of the songs that we heard on a local radio station over the course of the game, and burned them to a CD later as a reminder of the event.

Looking at both lists, I’d say I like this collection of songs a bit more than the 13 that played during that NE trip five years ago, on a classic rock station out of Hartford called 102.9 FM, The Whale. And I just now noticed: what’s with the animal kingdom theme with my choice of stations for Statis Pro games? Does that mean that for the 50th Anniversary game I might be listening to 99.7 FM, The Wombat?

Thunderstruck – AC/DC
Dust in the Wind – Kansas
Wanted Dead or Alive – Bon Jovi
Somebody to Love – Queen
Wheel in the Sky – Journey
Rainbow in the Dark – Dio
Runnin’ Down a Dream – Tom Petty
Bennie and The Jets – Elton John
I Can’t Drive 55 – Sammy Hagar
Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne
Born to Be Wild – Steppenwolf
Juke Box Hero – Foreigner
Live and Let Die – Paul McCartney and Wings

TWISP Notes #73

a
TWISP Notes
August 3, 2020

• You may have noticed something new on the team stats pages for August: some players now have a small ‘a’ or an ‘o’ next to their names. This signifies if a player or pitcher is currently playing for the team’s AAA club (a) or is currently injured, on the disabled list, or suspended (o). These designations will only be seen in the main Batting and Pitching stat boxes, and at some point I’ll be adding them to prior month’s pages as well.

• The Padres, hoping to make a late-season run at first place in the NL West, have revamped their lineup and are returning to one implemented by manager Roger Craig in May, when the team went 21-6 for the month. Oscar Gamble and Derrel Thomas will platoon in left, while Gene Tenace will alternate between catcher and first base; Gene Richards will be at first when Tenace is catching, and Rick Sweet will be behind the plate when Tenace starts at first.

• Oakland rookie Tim Conroy, called up from AAA Vancouver a week ago, was a last-minute replacement for scheduled starter Matt Keough in their game against Baltimore on August 21st. In 4.2 innings pitched, he gave up 12 hits and six runs in a 6-5 loss, dropping his lifetime ML record to 1-1. Conroy will be returned to the Canadians tomorrow to make room for veteran Steve Renko, who will be coming off the 21-day disabled list.

The Oscillating Fan of Learning

Many years ago, when I was not so knowledgeable about baseball’s past, I was looking through a book and found a picture of old Forbes Field, where the Pittsburgh Pirates played their home games before moving into Three Rivers Stadium in 1970. The black-and-white photo showed a game in-progress as seen from the right field seats; what caught my attention was the obviously phony image of a skyscraper in the background, poorly crammed into the existing photo by some overzealous artist who didn’t care at all about realism.

I mean, c’mon! Was I supposed to think the ballpark was located in some empty section of downtown, where only one skyscraper had been built? It reminded me of those postcards I’d find in gas stations during vacation drives across the Midwest, showing a rabbit with antlers or a man standing next to a strawberry the size of a semi truck. I mean, pretty ridiculous, right?