TUESDAY
Q. Who
was the last player to hit a grand slam in a game in which he hit for the
cycle?
Hint: Despite being on the losing team of the
2010 World Series he still received a championship ring.
Hint: He
and his brother were teammates in another World Series.
Hint: He won two gold gloves, only second best
within his family.
Twint: Not
exactly a speedster, he once hit a home run and was pinch run for before he
made it to second base.
A. Bengie Molina
FCR - J.J.
McCoy, Washington, DC
Notes
on BENGIE MOLINA
This has only been accomplished nine
times, and only four times since the end of the 1933 season. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats16d.shtml
Molina’s big game: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS201007160.shtml
Molina started the 2010 season with
the National League Champion San Francisco Giants, who traded him to the
American League Champion Texas Rangers on July 1. He played in four games for
Texas in their World Series loss. Others who also played for both World Series
teams in the same season are:
1.
2.
Jack Kramer in 1951.
He started the season with the Giants, was released on May 19 then picked up on
May 28 by the Yankees, who released him on August 30. He therefore didn’t play
in the series.
3.
Johnny
Schmitz in 1952. He started the season with the Dodgers then was
selected off waivers by the Yankees on August 1. On August 28 he was traded
with three other players to Cincinnati for Ewell Blackwell therefore he didn’t
get into the series.
4.
Sid Monge in 1984.
He began the year with the Padres and then was purchased by the Tigers on June
10. He remained with the Tigers the rest of the season but he didn’t make it in
to any of their postseason games.
5.
Lonnie Smith in 1985.
Smith started year with the Cardinals then was traded on May 17 to the Royals
where be became their regular left fielder for the rest of the season. That
October he became the first player to appear in a World Series against a team
for whom he played earlier that same season. The player going the other way in
the trade, John Morris, didn’t make his major league debut until the following
season.
6.
Jim Bruske in1998.
The journeyman relief pitcher played for three teams in 1998. He had played for
the Padres in 1997 but the Dodgers claimed him off waivers right after the
season ended. He got into 35 games in LA then was traded back to the Padres on
July 23. One month later, after only 4 appearances, San Diego traded him to the
Yankees. He got into 3 games in New York, including starting the last game of
the year, but that was to be the end of his Yankee career. He wasn’t put on the
postseason roster then was released during training camp the following spring.
The three other players involved in the trade between the Padres and the
Yankees never appeared in the major leagues.
7.
In 2010 Bengie Molina became the
second player to appear in a series against the team with whom he started the
season.
8.
Chris Ray in 2010.
Relief pitcher Ray was one of the two players the Rangers sent to the Giants
for Bengie Molina (the other was minor leaguer Michael Main). He saw action in
35 games for Texas and another 28 for the Giants but he didn’t play in the post
season.
9.
Arthur
Rhodes
in 2011. Rhodes began his 20th
and last season in the majors with the Rangers, going 3-3 with 1 save in 32
games before being released on August 8. The Cardinals picked him up three days
later and he got into 19 more games before the end of the season. He appears in
games 1, 2 and 7 of the World Series against his former team, retiring the one
batter he faced in each of his appearances.
10.
More information about these players
can be found in this article: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=sh-henson_arthur_rhodes_world_series_ring_101811
Nobody played for both the Tigers and
Giants in 2012. In fact, Aubrey Huff was the only player on the Giants’ World
Series roster who had ever played for the Tigers (40 games in 2009) and none of
the Tigers had ever played for the Giants.
This happened in 2002 for the Angels
when Bengie Molina started all 7 games of the series. His brother Jose Molina
came in to catch in games 1 and 6 after Bengie was pinch hit for and in game 5 to
catch the last inning of a blowout loss. Box scores and statistics from this series can
be found here:
Bengie won the American League Gold
Glove for catchers in 2002 and 2003. Jose has been shut out but Yadier
Molina won the National League Gold Glove each year from 2008 to 2011.
These pages list all Gold Glover winners:
On 26-Sep-2008,
about a month after instant replay was first used on home run calls, Molina hit
a ball that the umpires initially ruled to be in play. While Molina waited on first base for a
decision Emmanuel Burriss came out of the Giants’ dugout to pinch run. Upon review the umpires ruled the hit a home
run but Molina wasn’t allowed to be reinserted into the game. Burriss completed the turn around the bases;
getting credit for the run scored, and was then replaced by Steve Holm behind
the plate. Here is a recap of the
game: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=280926126
Note that the Baseball-Reference.com
play-by-play doesn’t show Burriss’ pinch running appearance, although Burriss’
and Molina’s career totals show that Burriss scored this run and not Molina: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN200809260.shtml
TUESDAY X 2
Q. Who
was his team’s starting pitcher in an upset win over the USA at a World
Baseball Classic?
Hint: His
first four major league starts were against former Cy Young Award winners.
Hint: That year he also started against three additional
pitchers who each eventually won 200 games.
Hint: Despite the stiff competition he still
finished his rookie season with a .500 record.
Twint: Stan
the Man and The Babe are good role models for him.
A. Adam Loewen
FCR - Scott
Crawford, St. Mary’s, ON
Notes
on ADAM LOEWEN
Adam Loewen started and pitched into
the fourth inning of Canada’s 8-6 win over the USA on March 8, 2006. Here is a recap of the game; Loewen’s start is
mentioned about half way through the article:
Loewen’s first two major league
appearances were in relief, including the game that was Jered Weaver’s
debut on 27-May-2006.
He moved to the Orioles’ starting
rotation in June and matched up against former Cy Young winners Randy
Johnson, Roy Halladay
(two games) and Tom Glavine
on June
3, 8,
13,
18
2006. Loewen went 0-2 with a 7.40 ERA
while pitching 20.2 innings in these four games.
Loewen also started against Mike Mussina
(05-Aug,
Mussina took the loss that day, coming in with 237 of his 270 wins), David Wells
(11-Aug,
with Wells getting the 228th of his 239 wins) and Tim
Wakefield (30-Sep,
Wakefield took a no decision after coming into the game with 151 of his 200
wins).
Loewen finished 2006 with a 6-6 record
in 19 starts and 3 relief appearances. He
was 1‑3 with 3 no decisions in his 7 starts against the Cy Young recipients and
200-game winners and he went 5-3 against the rest of the field. Here is Loewen’s game log from 2006: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=loewead01&t=p&year=2006
Adam Loewen was a first round draft
choice and made it to the big leagues as a starting pitcher but several stress
fractures forced him to give up his mound duties. He signed with the Blue Jays then returned to
the low minors to try to become an outfielder. He achieved his goal and made it back to the
majors on 07-Sep-2011
when he was the Blue Jays’ starting right fielder:
Like Loewen Stan Musial and Babe Ruth
started their professional careers as pitchers and later converted to the
outfield. Ruth’s early pitching prowess
is well documented. Musial was
exclusively a pitcher in 1938 and 1939 before splitting 1940 between the mound
(18-5, 2.62 ERA in 223 innings) and the outfield (57 games, .311 batting
average). Here is Musial’s minor league
record: http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=musial001sta
TUESDAY X 3
Q. Who
has the highest career slugging percentage in the expansion era for players
under 5'10" tall (minimum 500 plate appearances)?
Hint: At
the time of his retirement he was the National League’s oldest player.
Hint: He
hit home runs for eleven different franchises, but he didn’t homer for the
teams for whom he played his first and last games.
Twint: While
still an active major leaguer he was a hockey coach in the off season.
A. Matt Stairs
FCR - Scott
Crawford, St. Mary’s, ON
Notes
on MATT STAIRS
Matt Stairs (5’9” - .47675) beat Kirby
Puckett (5’8” - .47667) by a narrow margin. If Puckett had had one more total base or
Stairs had had one more unsuccessful at bat they would have switched positions.
Ivan
Rodriquez, Dustin
Pedroia and Miguel
Tejada are next on the list. Stairs has the eighth highest slugging
percentage all time for shorter players. Hack Wilson
(.545), Earl
Averill (.534) and Mel Ott
(.533) are the top three.
Stairs was the oldest National Leaguer
in 2011 but American Leaguers Tim
Wakefield and Omar Vizquel
were the oldest major leaguers. In 2010
National League pitchers Jamie Moyer
and Trevor
Hoffman were older than Stairs. In
2009 pitchers Moyer, Hoffman, Randy Johnson, Doug Brocail,
John
Smoltz and Tom Gordon
were older, but no position players were older.
Stairs hit home runs for Boston (1),
Oakland (122), Chicago Cubs (17), Milwaukee (16), Pittsburgh (20), Kansas City
(39), Texas (3), Detroit (2), Toronto (32), Philadelphia (7) and San Diego (6).
Stairs debuted as a Montreal Expo (no
home runs in 19 games in 1992 and 1993) and finished up as a Washington
National (none in 56 games in 2011).
Stairs was the assistant hockey coach
at Bangor, Maine’s John Bapst High School.
http://bangordailynews.com/2008/11/26/sports/world-title-changes-stairsamprsquo-life/
No comments:
Post a Comment