Morning Angels Fans! Hope you had a wonderful Mexico Beats France day yesterday. Now have some links!
Bad News
That’s not good. Pete Rose allegedly used corked bats in 1984. Allegedly. In Montreal. According to a grounds keeper in Montreal. Allegedly. No way he makes the Hall of Fame now.
So all those proposals on an MLB start? Yeah none of them have been ran through the Players Union. So the start of baseball is still uncertain. One of the people who broke the proposal news is also facing backlash. Want rumors and proposals or just want everyone to stop until something official comes in?
Stripling finally admits what we all knew. The Angels Dodgers trade that was canceled would have been a win win.
MLB trade rumors reminds Angels Fans that the Cozart deal happened. So I am reminding you. Sorry.
Unbad News
The KBO officially started yesterday! There were even photos of fans in the seats. Sure they were literal photos but who cares? BASEBALL!
Already some excitement in the KBO too. A no hit bid through 6 on the first day of the season.
Fangraphs has used their ultimate Zips projection technology to project KBO stats. Amazing!
Bored out of your mind? So are other Angels fans. This one decided to do something about it and made Angel Stadium in Animal Crossing.
Hey want to see a biased documentary about the 1998 home run race? Well espn got you covered.
Boras is restless. He has called for Spring Training already. If there is any agent that could get MLB to get a move on it is him.
David Fletcher is amazing. And it’s willing to say things online for our amusement.
Isn’t Stripling the one who tweeted a gif of him celebrating after the trade feel through? Now he feels remorse? Whatever. It doesn’t matter now, nothing matters now. 🙁
Jeff Mathis
Happy 89th birthday to the legendary Willie Mays.
he was kind of like OUR Michael Jordan to us kids who came of age in the 1960s
He’s the 2nd best CF ever!
“I knew I’d catch it… all the time….” — Mays on Wertz’s drive to CF.
Had he not lost two of his prime playing years to military service. I figure he’d have at least 60 more home runs, and about 375 more hits. Hank Aaron would’ve been chasing Mays, not Ruth, for the home run title.
Didn’t they play at the same time?
They did, but Mays would’ve passed Ruth first. Mays retired in 1973. Aaron hit 715 in April 1974.
I wondered about “60 more” until I saw he came back after his service and hit 41 in 1954 and then 51 in 1955. “60 more” might be conservative. Or….1952 had a low number of HRs. If he’d finished 5th in both ’52 and ’53 he’d have had another 21 HRs in ’52 and 35 in ’53. Hmmm…maybe “60 more” is accurate, and it would have put him at 720.
Looking at those old stats is interesting. Mays hit 51 HRs in 1955, led the league in a bunch of categories including OPS and WAR (unknown, of course, in those days) yet finished 4th in the MVP voting.
While looking at the 1952 season I see Stan Musial led in batting average, OPS, total bases, doubles, runs created and a few others while Jackie Robinson led in WAR for position players and on-base pct (with Musial right behind him. Musial came in 5th in the MVP voting, Robinson 7th. Hank Sauer led the league in HRs and RBIS so he got that trophy.
If Pete Rose corked his bats for 20 years, you’d think that would have come out at some point? Like, did he ever break a bat? Would have been pretty obvious then…
Yeah. that’s how they caught Wilton Guerrero.
He probably didn’t cork his bat for 20 years, but he had a major down year in 1983 (.245 AVG) that might have persuaded him he needed an edge in 1984, when he jumped back up to .286.