TW Hit List - Hank Aaron

"Henry Aaron is simply smarter than all the pitchers. He deceives pitchers. One of his secrets is his slow manner, he puts pitchers to sleep." - Ernie Johnson

Hank Aaron is baseball’s undisputed “Home Run King”, at least for a couple more months. Williams calls Aaron a classic mistake hitter. “When he got a pitch to hit, he missed it less often than anybody else.” And he got a lot of pitches to hit. Aaron played for twenty-three seasons and has the most games played and at-bats of anyone on the Hit List. But longevity should not be used against someone. He made it count. He managed to maintain a .305 batting average and career .932 OPS over 12,000 at-bats. In addition to his record 755 home runs, he remains the Major League career leader in extra-base hits (1,477), RBIs (2,297) and total bases (6,856). He's tied with Babe Ruth for fourth in runs scored (2,174) and is third in hits (3,771). He hit 20 or more home runs for 20 consecutive seasons from 1955-74. Aaron had eight seasons with 40 or more homers, including a career-high 47 in 1971. He had 63 multi-homer games and 16 grand slams. What is more, Aaron was not simply a home run hitter. He hit .300 or better 14 times, averaged just 63 strikeouts a season, stole 240 bases in his career and won three Gold Gloves in the outfield.

Obviously, Aaron was a monster in the batter’s box. Apparently, he was nearly the opposite outside of it. He has been blamed for lacking charisma and being too colorless and predictable. It is for these reasons that many say he has not received the attention he’s due. I don’t get it. I’ve heard as much about him as anyone else. This game is supported by the fans, and they may show their affection for whom they will. Williams implies that nobody is likely to break his mark of 755 career home runs. Even without Barry Bonds lurking in the foreground, it’s hard to understand this sentiment. The game cycles and records are made to be broken. As it is, we see that Williams was way off. But this is to say nothing against Aaron. He has surely cemented his spot as one of the great all-time hitters.

"I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them."

the baseball diaries

"I was ridin' my horse, down by the Rio Grand-ee,
And all them coyotes singin', in a prairie symphony..."

Don't look now, but the Angels are on a tear!! Winners of SIX straight, riding high on the performances of their pitching staff (except Cousin Oliver) and the bats of Reggie and the Full Effect, CabFare, Bladimir, and Gary Matthews Juicer, these blokes are on a mission! Not to mention the timely slugging from Quinnie the Pooh and MoNapoli and the great glove work from Gaybar.

Tonight Barcholo the Magical Fat-Faced Talking Pinata takes the hill vs. Chad Durbin of le Tigre, seeking a seventh straight win for the Halos.

Seriously though, how badass is Reggie? This kid is top ten in BA and OBP (but needs more ab's to qualify amongst the leaders recognized by the league) and is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Angels as a leadoff guy. I'm loving every minute of it!

And how about that sweep of the Dodgers? That was simply awesome, outscoring them 19-4 over the three game set! Smashing!

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"Ee he o he-o cowboy, Ee he o he-o oooo,

Ee he o he-o cowboy, cowboy, cowboy,

Under the moon.

Giddyup."

Pitch Speeds

So, my nerdy side prevailed and I looked into finding out about pitch speeds. To set this up, think of the last Angels game you watched on FSN. Try to forget the fact that the Fizz just put the emphises on the wrong part of the score (i.e. when the Angels were Down 5-0 and they score two runs, Fizz said, "...now it's FIVE to two...) and check your memory of the pitch speed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Sometimes for Frod's fastballs it'll read 96 MPH! But is that the pitch's "real" speed as it crosses the plate (after Jeter takes a useless swing at it)? Or does it cross the plate at, say, 91 mph? According to MLB.com's Gameday pitch tracker, there are two distinct speeds: The release speed (from the pitchers hand) and the result speed (at home plate, regardless if the ball hit the catcher's glove or the batter made contact). The speed readings are compiled by time/distance video tracking and calculated for every pitch. The results are intriguing and different from what we would see on the radar reading we get on TV. I asked Alan Nathan, who runs a website titled the Physics of Baseball, his take on this. He says the radar reading most likely only measures the speed of the pitch about 1/4 of the way between the release of the ball from the pitcher's hand to home plate. He even goes on to say that the speed indicated on TV is most likely 2-3 mph slower than the release point and ends up being perhaps up to 7 mph slower at home plate compared to the release point. He figures a 10% DECREASE in ball speed from release to "result" (home plate). I tried out his theory and garnered the following results, based on the memory of speeds indicated on Gameday. In my very unscientific test, I got a decrease in release/resulst speed of approximately 5.5 to 6.5%, depending on different release/result speeds used, which I observed.

I guess this conclusion can be derived: Radar readings are an inaccurate way of determining pitch speed. A more accurate measure is video time/distance tracking which effectively measures the rate of speed at home plate, where the batter is.

After all of that, check out this video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQrQkgcty0I

TW Hit List - Joe Jackson

“Shoeless” Joe Jackson is one of the more noted figures in baseball history. But it is not mainly for his bat, but for his involvement in the 1919 World Series. This is a shame, for Williams claims for Jackson that he was the best pure hitter ever. It is not the purpose here to discuss the “BlackSox” scandal, Jackson’s alleged role, or its aftermath. However, we should say that Jackson’s numbers and achievements, even with a shortened career, easily show him to be Hall of Fame-worthy.

Just about anybody who saw Jackson play considered him in a class by himself. To some degree, he played in the shadow of Ty Cobb. In his first three seasons (1910-1912), he batted .387, .408 and .395, but Cobb won the batting title each season! (Okay, 1910 was nothing close to a full season for Jackson. As it was, Cobb and Nap Lajoie engaged in a famous batting duel that is a story in itself). Cobb was a fierce, gung-ho ballplayer who always played with all-out abandon. And oh yes, he was extremely good and hit for extremely high averages. But so did Jackson. And Jackson was graceful whereas Cobb was anything but. He was quick and strong with a perfectly fluid swing. Babe Ruth himself said he modeled his own swing after Jackson’s, “I copied Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter." From my reading of Williams and others, I get the impression that for a few decades in the middle of the twentieth century, Jackson was nearly forgotten about. He was nearly memory-holed. But his story just couldn’t be kept down for long. One of the greatest players ever naively mixed up in a scandal that results in his banishment from baseball and the neglect of fans for years. Williams gives a sort of apology for including him in the book despite his official status. I don’t see the need. The results speak for themselves.

Jackson finished with the third highest batting average ever at .356, behind only Cobb and Hornsby, and a career .940 OPS. He had less than half the at-bats of most the other fellows on this list, but he still finished with over 1,700 hits and nearly a thousand runs and RBI’s. He maintained a bases-on-balls to strikeout ratio of over 3:1 and struck out only once in every 26.48 at-bats, a ratio far better than anyone else on this list, even Cobb. His .408 average in 1911 is still the highest for a rookie full season and for what it’s worth, he led batters in the 1919 WS with a .375 clip. This list is about hitting, but it is known that Jackson was a superb fielder as well. He had a gifted arm, a real outfielder’s instinct, and his glove was a place “where triples go to die.” Speaking of triples, we’ll end this post with another gem of baseball lore:

In the early days of baseball, bench jockeying was prevalent and accepted. Shoeless Joe was decidedly lacking in book learning, a fact not lost on rival teams. As he stood at the plate awaiting the next delivery one hot August afternoon, a leather lung in the enemy dugout bellowed, “Can you spell illiterate?” Jackson responded with a stinging live drive and ended up in a cloud of dust on third base. Brushing himself off, he turned toward his tormentor and with a devilish grin asked, “Can you spell triple?”

the baseball diaries

Ah Barcholo, the Magical Fat Faced Talking Pinata. He faces Social Anxiety Disorder-suffering Zack Greinke of the Royales w/ cheese, tonight in Kaci (wow, that was a stretch to fit all those references in...). Hoping to follow up on their win yesterday, the Angels can count on Fignuts to be in the lineup again tonight. He tallied his first rbi of the season last night in his first start. Glad to see him back! Vladdy also chimed in with two rbi's in the first inning. Also, His Lackness pitched a fine 6 1/3 innings allowing only one run and striking out seven! Fresh, Pyre, and Frod did the rest.

By the way, the picture posted of 'Cholo was taken from over a mile away and he still filled the entire frame!

dil8d halo