Unfortunately, the Cubs are last in the Central this year and their current winning percentage (.349) puts them on pace to go 57-105 for the season.

Let’s put that number in perspective. In the 137 year history of the franchise, Chicago has only had two 100+ lose seasons (1962 & 1966). Yes the Cubs are the “Lovable Losers”, but they don’t lose this much! In fact, as hard as it might be for some people to believe, the Cubs have an overall franchise winning record (10,326 – 9807). Even when you just use their record as the “Chicago Cubs” since 1903, they are still 167 games over .500.

I was at the fifth game of their current losing streak. It was the Saturday night game of the White Sox series.  It always fun to go to the game with friends, it’s not quite as fun when those friends are Sox fans and the Sox are in the middle of a 3 game sweep over the Cubs.

Leaving team allegiance aside though, we were joined by my sister and brother-in-law and we all had a good time at the game.

One other thing that I wanted to mention.  I’m a baseball card collector; one of the friends that went to the game is also a collector, far more prolific than me. And this season the Cubs have done something that I think is cool with the printed season tickets. They have reprinted a Topps® baseball card on each ticket.  Sometimes it just a random card (although it probably isn’t, I just haven’t figured out the connection yet), but most times it is a card of a Cubs player that is connected to the team that the Cubs are playing that day.

This past Saturday it was a 1974 Ron Santo. Santo played with the White Sox the final year of his career.

Here is another example from April against the Cardinals. It’s a 1962 Lou Brock card.

Great idea for the tickets and fun for collectors of particular players.

And so just when you least expect it, baseball comes through again to create new stories.

Just 34,937 show up. I haven’t been able to look it up yet, but that has got to be the smallest crowd for a Cubs-Sox game since Inter-league play has started. That’s a smaller crowd than the Cubs have been averaging this season through a cold April and early May. I hope Bud Selig takes notice, and I hope he reads my post on how to write the schedule next year when the Astros move to the AL.

Dale Sveum was ejected for arguing a play at second base. Sveum was right, David DeJesus was basically barrel-rolled off the bag by G Beckham and then tagged out. Bad call by the ump.

Paul Konerko hits a HR and then gets hit in the eye during his next at bat.  Hopefully Konerko is OK and doesn’t miss much time. I really don’t think Samardzija threw at Paulie on purpose, but it was bad timing to hit a batter that hit a HR off you the time before, which meant……………

Phillip Humber buzzed one behind LaHair. LaHair has had an unexpectedly great start to the season. In fact he has become the Cubs main power hitter. Which means, if their power hitter gets hit with a pitch and the other team wants to “even the score”, LaHair is gonna get hit (or at least be the target).

Kerry Wood calls it a career.  What a nice way to go out. The last couple of seasons have been up and down for Wood. Actually I guess you could say his entire career has been up and down. Today however, Kerry was able to go out in style. Wood came on in relief in the top of the 8^th to face Dayan Viciedo and on three pitches he recorded his 1,581 and last strikeout.  The official retirement press conference will be tomorrow before game two of the series. But for now, let’s relive all 20 strikeouts from just over 14 years ago, May 5^th, 1998…………

 White Sox win Game 1:  3-2

       1.      The Cubs are 39-45 in Inter-league play against the White Sox.

       2.     42 different Cubs have hit HR’s vs the White Sox. Aramis Ramirez has hit the most (13). Paul Kornerko has the most for the Sox (18).

       3.    Carlos Zambrano has the most wins (6) vs the Sox, he also has the most loses (4).

       4.    I’m not really a big fan of either, but I think Phillip Phillips is gonna win over Jessica Sanchez on this years American Idol.

        Bonus:   Mark Grace has the longest hit streak (15) in the Cubs – Sox matchups. Magglio Ordonez is second with 12. Paul Konerko had two 9 games streaks.

Other Things You Might Not Have Known:

Wild Card Edition

Spring Training Edition

Cubs Edition

HR Edition

While everyone is talking about Harper, who hit his second career HR today after hitting his first last night, its Strasburg and the team I want to focus on.

Since leaving Montreal in 2005 and moving to Washington, the Nationals have yet to have a winning record. However this year they have started out strong.  They are 8 games above .500 and find themselves at the top of the standings with the perennial powerhouse Atlanta Braves. Despite injuries to their starting first baseman (Michael Morse, 0 GP), their closer (Drew Storen, 0 IP), and losing both their primary catcher (Wilson Ramos) and his replacement (Sandy Leon); the Nats have proven that they have a good chance to win the NL East.

It’s the chance at post season that will make the pronouncement of Nats GM Mike Rizzo that Stephen Strasburg will be limited to 160 innings pitched this year one that will be questioned all summer.

Before looking ahead though, let’s see how we got here.

Strasburg was drafted number 1 overall by the Nationals in the summer of 2009. He made his MLB debut on national TV on June 8^th, 2010. And what a debut it was. Despite being on a 90 pitch pitch-count (he actually threw 94 in 7 inn), Strasburg recorded the second most strikeouts (14) ever for a pitcher making his first major league start, and the most for one that didn’t pitch a complete game. The baseball hype machine went into over-drive afterward like it has done in the past with rookie pitchers like Mark Fidrych**, Fernando Valenzuela and Dwight Gooden.  Strasburg was being compared to the likes of Walter Johnson, Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan after just one start. Unfortunately it all came crashing down just 59 innings later in Philadelphia when Strasburg walked off the mound with a sore elbow that ended up requiring Tommy John surgery. Strasburg missed the remainder of the 2010 season and all but the last three weeks of the 2011 season.

This brings us to the 2012 season and the edict from Nationals management that Strasburg will throw no more than 160 innings this year. The innings limit being set in an attempt to mitigate the stress on Strasburg’s elbow in his first “full” season.

What makes 160 the right amount of innings?  Nothing.  Saying 160 is the right number of innings to pitch is like picking a number out of a hat to play roulette, it might be a winner, but unlikely.

There is absolutely no evidence that suggests that “saving” some wear on Strasburg now will prevent another arm injury. Remember, he blew his elbow out the first time after just 68 innings.

And so here’s the thing, all of this talk about 160 innings would probably be mute and would only be cared about by fantasy players this year except for one thing, the Nationals unexpectedly find themselves in first place.  And at his current pace, Strasburg is due to hit the 160 inning mark around September 1^st, just in time for the final stretch drive and the playoffs.

So what will they do if they are still in the race? It will be interesting. Personally I would let him continue pitching innings, but maybe limit his in-game pitch counts to say 100 or less. And yes, I do know that picking 100 pitches is as arbitrary as 160 innings, but you gotta make a trade-off somewhere and I would rather have him pitch 6 or 7 innings instead of none at all.

** Mark Fidrych won his first Major League start 36 years ago today against the Cleveland Indians.  Despite not making his first start until May 15^th, Fidrych went on to win 19 games, throw 24 complete games and pitch 250 innings. Of course he ended up hurting his arm. Over the next four years he won only 10 games and pitched just 162 innings before calling it quits. 

According to a report on ESPN.com today, MLB has fired arbitrator Shyam Das. Das was the arbitrator that decided against MLB and reversed the leagues 50 game substance abuse suspension of Ryan Braun.

Das was actually a part of a 3-member panel, which included him and one representative each from management and the players union.  In most cases brought before the panel, Das would be the tie-breaking vote, just as he was in Braun’s case.

According to the report, Das has served as the League-Union agreed upon arbitrator for the past 13 years; he also currently serves the NFL in the same capacity. However, the collective bargaining agreement between the players and the owners allows for either side to fire the arbitrator at any time, and the owners just used that power.

After the decision was handed down to overturn Braun’s suspension, MLB made it very clear that they “vehemently disagree” with the ruling and that they believe the testing program in place is working. Although today they dropped a 100 game ban of Colorado Rockies catcher Eliezer Alfonzo because of the same procedural error that played a role in Braun’s case.

As I said at the time, I didn’t know if Braun used PED’s or not, but I said the most important part of the story was that the system worked. The player, Braun in this situation, had his grievance heard, both sides made their case, and an independent arbitrator made a ruling.

Now however, I think the system just broke.  At least for this arbitrator and for his successor’s.

While the 3-member panel remains in place, and the system for choosing an impartial third member is fair to both sides; MLB made it clear today that any future arbitrators better know that if they render a decision that MLB doesn’t agree with, they will be gone. And you can be sure that the MLBPA will use the same power.

All I can say is, if you are planning on applying for the vacant arbitrator position and you get the job…..rent, don’t buy.

Don Baylor won the 1979 AL MVP Award, in fact he won it quite handily. Baylor received 20 of the 28 first place votes and won the award over second place finisher Ken Singleton by over 100 points (347-241). Singleton received 3 first place votes and third place finisher George Brett received 2. The winner though should have been the guy that finished fourth, Fred Lynn.

Unlike the Cy Young Award which generally goes to the best pitcher in each season regardless of the final standings of his team, the MVP Award seems to be more closely tied to the success of each player’s team. You can almost be assured that the winner of the MVP will come from a playoff reaching team, or at the very least, a team that was in the hunt for post season play right up until the final weekend. That line of thinking was clearly at play in 1979.

Don Baylor’s California Angels won the AL West by 3 games over the Kansas City Royals. It was the first playoff appearance in the then 19 year history of the Halos.

Entering September, the Angels had a half game lead over the Royals and they had a great month, going 16-11. Naturally a lot of the credit for that final push went to team leader Don Baylor. And Baylor did have a good month, but it was probably only his 3 best month of the year. That Sept he hit 6 HR’s, drove in 21 runs and had a .297 batting average; compared to May when he went 7-23-.354 and July when he went 11-34-.349

Meanwhile, Boston entered September eight games behind Baltimore and played poorly, going 13-16 to finish out the year.

So while all the media attention was focused on California and Baltimore during that last month, Boston and Fred Lynn finished out the season in relative obscurity.  Here’s the thing though, when you look at the final records of each team, Boston won 91 games while California won 88.

So when the writers factor in the whether or not each of the potential MVP candidates have reached post-season play, and they certainly do factor it in, I believe they should at least take overall record into account when you are dealing with players from different divisions. After all, every division is not created equally, and this case, the AL East was clearly tougher than the AL West.  I’m going to declare the team performance of each player, Baylor and Lynn, a push.

If team performance is a push, we need to look at individual performance to determine our MVP. Here are the stats and league rank in parentheses for each player.

Player      Runs          HR             RBI            AVG              OBP                 SLG                 OPS          WAR*

D Baylor- 120 (1)      36 (4)    139(1)     .296(18)     .371(17)      .530(10)       .901(10)     3.5(24)

F Lynn –   116 (4)     39 (2)    122 (4)     .333(1)       .423(1)          .637(1)          1.059(1)     8.6 (1)

 *WAR: Wins Above Replacement

Baylor did score a couple more runs (4) than Lynn did and he also had more RBI, but those two stats are as much a function of your teammates play as it is your own. You can’t drive in runners that aren’t on base, and when you’re on base somebody has to drive you in.  If you look at the purely individual stats, (HR’s, OBP, SLG, AVG) Lynn dominates over Baylor.

The last thing that really pushes Lynn over Baylor for me is defense. Lynn was a Gold Glove player, Baylor was a liability. And that’s not just my opinion; it’s born out of the stats. It’s most evident when you look at their WAR numbers.

WAR numbers can be broken down between hitting (oWAR) and fielding (dWAR).

Baylor – oWAR=5.0  +  dWAR=-2.5 :  WAR = 3.5

Lynn    -  oWAR=7.6  +  dWAR=1.0  :  WAR = 8.6

Baylor cost his team an estimated 14 runs compared to the average outfielder. Fred Lynn saved his team 9 runs. I think when you put everything together the final answer is easy.

So Congratulations Fred Lynn! You Are……….

Wrigley Regulars 1979 AL MVP Award Winner

 Find out “Who Should Have Won?” the 2005 AL Cy Young Award by clicking here.

The drive wasn’t bad; the game was scheduled to start at 11:30, so I left my house at 4am. With one bathroom/coffee stop, I was in the parking lot near the stadium at 9:20.

The gates to the park were to open at 10am, so I went to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame first.

 (You can click on this picture and all the other to see in full size)

The entrance to the Reds Hall is just outside “Nuxy’s Entrance” to the park, named after Reds pitcher and broadcaster Joe Nuxhall, who was the youngest pitcher to appear in a major League game when he pitched on June 10^th, 1944 at the age of 15……………take that Bryce Harper. Also just outside that gate is a statue of Johnny Bench.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll happily say it again, Bench was my favorite player when I was a kid.

Inside the museum, the first exhibit is about the 1975-76 Champion Reds. It’s also the third, fifth, sixth, and ninth. I will just say this, everywhere you go in the museum and in the ballpark itself, you will find one reference or another to the Big Red Machine. Not that I blame them, they were a great team. I’m sure if the Cubs ever win a World Series that team will be celebrated for decades to come too.

There are plenty of jerseys and bios of all the players. I took a couple of pictures.

Here is a picture of game worn spikes from Johnny Bench.

Look at those things. I was playing Little League when Bench was wearing those spikes and I had a better pair. Those things look they should have been worn by Gabby Hartnett in 1930, not All-Star Johnny Bench in the 70’s.

Surprisingly, or not, I’m not sure, there is not as much Pete Rose stuff as I thought there might be. There is a jersey and some pictures, but not overdone. There is a wall that is covered with 4,256 baseball’s. Here is the plaque that goes next to it.

The wall itself is right along a three story staircase that takes you to an upper level of the museum. It’s nice as you walk up the stairs they highlight certain numbered balls that you can read about, but it makes it impossible to get a nice picture. However, from the third floor you can look out over the “Rose” garden.

UPDATE: I just found a video description of the Pete Rose Baseball Wall and Garden, and now with the ability to add MLB Video’s here it is:

Once you are on the third floor they have another Big Red Machine exhibit, just in case you forgot who won the 1975 WS.

To finish up the tour, you see the 1990 World Series Trophy…

….and the plaques of all the Reds Hall of Fame members. There are 72 players and 6 executives honored, and no, Pete Rose is not one of them. Here are two pictures.

It was now 10am, time for the gates to open.

As you can see, there were probably less than 100 people at the gate. As we waited there was some friendly banter going on back and forth between Cubs and Reds fans.

When the gates opened I went straight into the seating area and took this shot.

It was really kind of weird being one of the first people inside a huge empty stadium. I then went back into the concourse to look around. One of the first things I saw was an LED sign hanging overhead with the starting lineups for both teams. For people like me that like to keep score at the game, this is a great feature.

If fact, during the game I was shown on TV writing something into my score book.

BTW, this game featured two starting pitchers (Ryan Dempster and Homer Baily) that were celebrating birthdays that day. That was the first time in Major League history that that had happened.

As I started my walk along the concourse, guess what I saw first. Yes, it was a mural of the 1975 Reds.

With no batting practice that day, I had plenty of time to walk around the entire stadium, and I did. Here are just a few of the pictures I took.

Look at the way the seats are turned toward home plate.

I just walked around, taking pictures and talking with ushers. I was wearing a Cubs hat and jersey and almost every usher asked me if I drove down for the series, when I told them that I just drove in that morning for the game most thought it was crazy, but then they all wanted to tell me about “their” park.  I’ve found that no matter where you go, baseball fans are proud of their park and when given the chance to talk about it with other baseball fans, they will gladly do so.

It was about 25 minutes before game time and I headed to my seat. I had a GREAT seat. Row 1 right behind the Cubs dugout. Here are two pictures of Soriano and Castro warming up right in front of me.

I took a few shots during the game, but I brought my cheap camera with me instead of the nice one and it doesn’t do very well with action shots.

Here is DeJesus leading off the game for the Cubs.

Here is Castro rounding third after hitting a first inning solo HR

I took this shot of Garza and Samardzija between innings

Somehow I get the feeling they weren’t looking into the crowd to see if they could spot dorks like me with a scorebook and camera in hand, they were probably doing a different kind of people watching.

Here is a shot of LaHair after a solo HR

In the middle of the game I went for a snack. First I had a hotdog. The women behind the counter asked if I wanted to get a red shirt also. At first I didn’t realize what she meant. I thought maybe it was a snack to go with the hotdog. Then I realized that she was talking about getting a Reds shirt instead of wearing my Cubs shirt, I laughed and said I was just fine the way I was. I ate the hotdog quickly and went looking for nachos to take back to my seat. I had to walk all the way out to the outfield concourse before I found them. I wished I hadn’t. I don’t know what kind of cheese that they use there, but it just didn’t taste that good to me.

The middle innings went fast and both pitchers were doing a good job.

The Cubs were leading the game 3-0 going into the eighth after hitting three solo shots early in the game. Then the Reds brought in Aroldis Chapman. I’ll just say this, he throws hard

The Cubs entered the bottom of the ninth leading 3-0. They lost the game 4-3 in ten innings. I could go through the gory details, but I’ll just let the pictures tell the tale.

Marmol comes in to close it out

Votto at the plate

Visit to the mound

Harris scores. Cubs 3-1

The bags are full of Reds

Votto Scores. Cubs 3-2

Sveum to the Mound

Marmol to the Bench

Throwing error in 10th with a tie score

1st and 3rd No outs. “What should we do?”

Cozart Scores the winning run. Reds Win 4-3

Dolis walks off. Reds Celebrate

Me – “Nice pitching Dolis” Dolis – no comment, but a good stare down.

After that is was back into the car for the 5 and a 1/2 hour drive home. Ugh.

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Update:  Thanks to Mark and MLBlogs Network for featuring my post on the front page. For all the new readers that have been directed to this page you can click  HERE  to read my most recent posts or subscribe to my page to receive email updates.  Thanks for reading.

~Russel

We know that there will be a change to the schedule next year for sure because the Houston Astros will be moving to the American League. Each league will now have three divisions of five, for an odd numbered total of 15. It makes all the divisions equal in number, but it also creates a situation in which there will be inter-league play on every day of the season, from Opening Day right through to the last game of the season.

Personally, I have no problem with inter-league play every day, if it’s good enough on May 18^th, why not September 18^th? And I think most people feel the same. However, if I’ve heard one beef about it though, it would be playing against the other league down the stretch of the season all the way to the last game. Most people like the idea of division games that last week, and I do to, but it rarely works out to be the 1^st and 2^nd place teams playing each other anyway. On the last day of the season this year, Minnesota will be playing Toronto, Atlanta is at Pittsburgh, San Diego at Milwaukee; Not exactly heated division rivalries, but I didn’t hear any complaints about that scheduling when it was posted.

If you read the ESPN article, you know the real gist of it was about the possible reduction in “Rivalry Games” like Mets-Yankees, Cubs-Sox, and Reds- Indians.

Good! I say.

I don’t need the Cubs to play the Sox 6 games each year in a home and home matchup.

MLB has a real opportunity to make the schedule right for the foreseeable future. But because I don’t trust them to come up with the correct plan……….I’m going to give it to them .

Every team plays 18 games against the other 4 teams in their Division: 72 Games Total

Every team plays 6 games against the other 10 non-division teams in its League: 60 Games Total

Every team plays 30 inter-league games. 6 games against each of the 5 teams in one of the three divisions in the other league. All the teams in your division will play the same other league division as you. Each year the division that they play will rotate: 30 Games

That’s a total of 162 games. It’s really that simple.

The only “flaw”, natural rivalry games (Cubs-Sox/NY-NY etc.) are reduced to happening only every three years. And that’s perfectly fine with me. The Cubs went from 1901 to 1997 without ever playing the Sox in the regular season and nobody had a problem with it. If MLB really needs the Cubs and the Sox to play against each other every year, they should have put them in the same division….. then it would REALLY be a rivalry, but until then I’m happy to play against the Cardinals every year and the Sox once every three years.

So there it is, so simple that it will never happen.

But hey Mr. Commissioner, if you are reading this and want to talk about it, just leave a comment down below or feel free to email me.

Side Note:  I’m taking WrigleyRegular on the road; I will be in Cincinnati tomorrow. You can look for a trip and game review with pictures coming soon.

I’ve never seen the kid play before tonight. My only knowledge of him is through articles I’ve read and the few highlights I’ve seen.

Based on that limited exposure, I had a negative impression of Harper going into the game. After watching him play……… I’m not sure how I feel.

Everything about this kid screams “Look at me!”  From the haircut, to the flipping off of his helmet as he ran the bases, to the grey painted bat. And make no mistake, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a bat that color. It reminded me of the first time I ever saw a player use a black painted bat- George Foster mid 70’s. 

What also screamed look at me? That bullet of a line drive that he hit to dead center over Matt Kemp’s head and the way he busted his ass down to second base. And then on defense, the laser throw he made from left field to home plate on a single to left. His throw beat the runner but Ramos dropped the ball.

I sorta get the feeling that he is a “Pete Rose”. He is gonna play hard…..tonight….tomorrow……every game ……every pitch.   And if you don’t like him or the way he plays…… too bad for you because he doesn’t care.

It’s gonna make him a very polarizing player, like Rose was.

Now he just needs to put up the numbers.

With 23 year old ace Stephen Strasburg on the mound against the Dodgers, the Nats will have 19 year old rookie Bryce Harper in left field. Harper is regarded as the best prospect in baseball.

Harper was drafted number one overall in the June 2010 amateur draft by the Nationals and his arrival in Washington has been anticipated by the fans ever since.

No matter how exciting Harper may seem though to National fans, he does come with some warts. Harper was drafted as a catcher, but it was clear right away that Bryce did not have the defensive talent to stay behind the plate, couple that with Washington having a solid catcher already (W Ramos) and Nationals management put Harper in the outfield. This spring Harper was sent to AAA Syracuse, he hasn’t exactly been lighting it up. I know it’s a small sample size, but Harper is hitting just .250 with 1 HR and 3 RBI in 82 plate appearances. Those are generally not the type of stats that get you promoted to replace a perennial all-star (Ryan Zimmerman).

There have also been questions about his personal makeup. I’m not sure how much stock you can put into those reports, but let’s face it, anytime you have a 19 year old kid that quit high school early just to play baseball and is now getting called up to play in the major leagues…… well….that’s not something that happens every day and it’s bound to give a kid some ego.

So now the Nationals have Strasburg and Harper, the two guys that Washington is hoping will be the nucleus of the team for the next decade or more. And I hope it works out for them, but as fans of the Cubs  (Wood & Prior) can tell you, it doesn’t always work out like you want.