TWISP Notes #73

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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.

• Pray for Boston and Montreal if they ever have a player go on the DL: the Expos only have have three fielders—all catchers who can’t hit—and five PB 2-5 pitchers available from their AAA squad, while the Bosox have just three players available: catcher Fred Kendall, outfielder Sam Bowen, and PB 2-5 pitcher Bobby Sprowl.

• With Mets third baseman Lenny Randle and backup Elliott Maddox both out with injuries, NY hot corner chores have fallen to Bobby Valentine (E10), who’s played five games at third this season, and Joel Youngblood (E9), who’s played three. Valentine started in the August 21st game against the Giants and made two errors in a 3-0 New York win.

• Cleveland activated outfielder Paul Dade from the 45-day disabled list on August 21st, after he spent 17 years out of action thanks to a collision with teammate Rick Manning during a July 6th game against Detroit. To make room on the roster for Dade, the Indians sent outfielder Danny Briggs to Portland of the PCL.

• The SP78 40th Anniversary trip to Cincinnati is—as of right now—a go! My friend Steve P and I will be departing Phoenix on August 20th, staying at the Marriott near Great American Ballpark (located on the spot where Riverfront Stadium once stood), visiting the Reds Hall of Fame, and playing a handful of SP78 games, including the 40th Anniversary contest between the Reds and Cardinals on Saturday, August 22nd. We’ll return to Phoenix on Sunday night.

• The starting lineups for the Reds-Cardinals 40th Anniversary game will be identical to those used in the actual August 22, 1978 contest; the starting pitchers will also be the same, with Tom Seaver (10-10, 2.97) going for the Reds, and John Denny (7-10, 3.38) starting for the Cards.

• The same number of games—four—that were played on SP78’s opening day will played during the 40th anniversary on August 22nd; all will be NL match-ups.

• I’m currently working on updating player hitting streaks and team won-lost streaks, neither of which have been updated since 2006…a stretch of 36 SP78 days between July 15th and August 20th.

Listen to all four SP78 40th Anniversary games on
CBS Radio and the SP78 radio network!

 

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?

TWISP Notes #72

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TWISP Notes
January 11, 2020

• In the August 20th game against the Yankees at the Kingdome in Seattle, M’s second baseman Julio Cruz stole his 91st base of the season, a sixth-inning theft of second off NY pitcher Bob Kammeyer, leaving him just five short of tying Ty Cobb’s AL record of 96.

• Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith of the Dodgers connected for two home runs apiece in LA’s 11-2 win over the Mets at Los Angeles. The four round-trippers came at the expense of four different New York pitchers: Nino Espinosa, Paul Siebert, Dwight Bernard, and Dale Murray. It was the second time this season two NL players on the same team had connected for two HR’s in the same game; Ellis Valentine and Larry Parrish each hit two against the Reds on July 18th, while Ben Oglivie and Gorman Thomas of the Brewers accomplished the feat in the AL on July 1st at Seattle.

• The Blue Jays have lost six games in a row, while the Mariners and Red Sox have lost five.

Tensions Run High as Cards Crush Braves 13-2

With the Cardinals putting the game away in the seventh with an eight-run explosion, an already tension-filled match-up between two last-place teams became even more strained when a teenage baserunner took matters into his own hands, hammering a final unapologetic nail into the Braves coffin and helping the Cards to a 13-2 rout at Busch Memorial Stadium in St Louis.

Things were quiet enough throughout the first few innings, with Atlanta building a 2-0 lead thanks to an RBI double from Biff Pocoroba in the second and a solo home run from Gary Matthews in the fourth. But St Louis countered in the bottom of the fourth, thanks in part to a pair of errors—by starting pitcher Eddie Solomon and second baseman Jerry Royster—and a passed ball by catcher Pocoroba, which helped three runners to cross the plate. Two harmless innings followed, with the Cards still holding a 3-2 advantage…and then everything went horrifically south for the Braves.

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