Baseball Between Us

Mike Trout, the sensational rookie from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, has done it again. With a leadoff homer against the Red Sox Tuesday night, Trout became the youngest player to hit 25 homers with at least 40 stolen bases:

Trout a Prize Catch

At 21 years old (and 21 days), Trout is hitting .340 with 41 steals and 100 runs scored. He’s the youngest player to swipe 40 bags since Ty Cobb did it in 1907, with 53 stolen bases.

But here’s the most telling stat of all. Trout’s combo of .340 batting with 25 HR and 41 steals in one season has never been accomplished by any player at any age – in the history of Major League Baseball.

Baseball has a big problem. The guy leading the National League (and all of Major League Baseball) in hitting is a cheater.

Melky Cabrera has been banned from baseball for 50 games after testing positive for testosterone, an illegal performance-enhancing drug. Yet if you check out the stats on the Major League Baseball website (click here): MLB Leaders you’ll find Cabrera listed as the top batter overall, with a .346 average.

Cabrera is hitting 3 points above the all-natural Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He’s also hitting 9 points higher than rookie phenom Mike Trout, who is the latest victim of the Sports Illustrated Jinx.

S.I. Cover Jinx

Since appearing on the August 27 cover issue of the magazine,

Mike Trout on the cover of S.I.

Trout has just one hit in 13 at bats, while striking out 5 times.

But back to baseball’s big dilemma. Why aren’t banned players banned from the record books? Who says cheaters never prosper when Cabrera is still listed as the leading hitter in the game? Why should Cabrera be handed the battle title when he broke the rules of the game?

Commissioner Bud Selig could send a strong message to players and fans by deleting the tainted accomplishments of Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon and others who have cheated the game. If teams had to sacrifice victories for cheating (as in college football), don’t you think managers and coaches would stop looking the other way? Didn’t the San Francisco Giants

AT&T Park

suspect that Melky Cabrera was using something, while hitting 91 points better than he did with the Braves just two years ago — and 72 points higher than he did with the Yankees in 2009?

Melky Cabrera Stats

It is possible to eliminate cheaters from the game. But it takes balls to do it. And so far Commissioner Bud Selig has been unable and unwilling to neuter the problem.

For the second time in one week, a Bay Area ballplayer has been suspended for testosterone usage. This time it’s Bartolo Colon, the pitcher who lead the Oakland A’s in wins, innings pitched and starts.

Colon Suspended

Colon’s 50-game suspension comes on the heels of the Giants’ Melky Cabrera’s equal punishment for using performance-enhancing drugs.

And here I thought the steroid era was finally behind us. But as Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over til it’s over.”

By this time you might think BALCO stands for Bay Area Losers Cheat Often. Too bad for the Giants and the A’s – yet somehow both teams manage to keep on winning.

Did you see the defensive gem by the Oakland A’s tonight?

The Athletics turned a triple play in the 5th inning to shut down a potential rally by the Minnesota Twins and win the game 4-1.

Check it out here:

A\’s Turn Triple Play

But it got me wondering: how many triple plays have occurred in Major League Baseball?

The answer is: 690, according to the Society for American Baseball Research:

Triple Plays by Year

Last year there were 4 triple plays recorded — and the same number in 2010. In 2009, baseball fans saw 5 triple plays, but just two in 2008.

There were 20 triple plays in 1890, but just one in 2005. And 1961 was the only year with no triple plays at all.

Felix Hernandez, the ace of the Seattle Mariners, mowed down 12 Tampa Bay Rays batters Wednesday, in pitching the 23rd perfect game in Major League Baseball history. King Felix was backed by some solid defense from the Mariners, beating the Rays 1-0, as you’ll see in this clip below:

Felix is Perfect

It was a case of role reversal for the Mariners, who found themselves on the other end of a perfect game this season, at the hands of Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox. In pitching his masterpiece today, King Felix hurled the third no-hitter game this season. Six Seattle pitchers combined to throw a no-hitter on June 8 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, also at Safeco Field.

Hernandez, 11-5 with a 174 strikeouts this season, tied for second best in MLB. He also has a 2.60 ERA, with 90 strikeouts in 92 /13 innings over his last 12 starts.



Who’s the biggest loser in baseball right now?

No it’s not the Houston Astros, even though they’ve lost 73 times this season. And no it’s not the Colorado Rockies, who have 68 losses.

And don’t pick on the Chicago Cubs. Perennial losers they may be, but somehow they’ve managed to win 42 times this year, which is 42 times more than the biggest loser.

That would be Teddy Roosevelt. How could a winning president be the all-time loser?

Run Teddy Run

It’s because Teddy The Giant Bobblehead Roosevelt is closing in on 500 consecutive losses in the presidential races at Nationals Park in Washington D.C. Roosevelt races nightly against Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson, but has never won a running contest from the outfield to the first base dugout.

George, Abe and Tom

On the night I was there, I thought for sure Teddy had won the race, but he must have slipped at the last moment (taking a dive for the team), as Washington and Jefferson evidently finished ahead of him.

Washington and Jefferson Lead Again

If history repeats itself, then TR is likely to lose his 500th race in a row on August 18th, much to the chagrin of the American electorate, that is now making daily demands to the Nationals: Let Teddy Win (see it here):

Let Teddy Win

The Nationals have a great team and a fantastic ballpark.

Nationals Park

So why not throw the fans a bone, Nationals and let Teddy win, just once?

This has got to be a first. A baseball umpire ejected a ballpark participant for publicly showing him up. Not a manager. Not a player. But a college intern who happened to be the organist for the Daytona Cubs, a single A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Derek Dye, a college kid from the University of Illinois had been doing an internship with the minor league club and was given a chance to play organ music for the game. After a questionable call at first base went against the home town team, Dye decided to take matters into his own hands.

Literally.

He cranked up the stadium organ and started playing Three Blind Mice. No words, just a few simple chords. And it took him only 5 seconds to get tossed out of the game by the home plate ump. Watch it here:

Umpire ejects college intern for choice of music

You can hear the umpire scream, “you’re gone”, as he points to the organist. Then the man in blue tells the field crew, “The guy just played ‘Three Blind Mice’. Turn the sound down for the rest of the night.”

And with that, Derek Dye was forced to exit the music booth.

“I took my hat off, scratched my head,” said Dye.

“I couldn’t believe he was talking to me. Not the manager, not the guy arguing the call, but the guy pressing the button on the music.”

A valuable life lesson perhaps for the college intern who learned that music can be more powerful than words. At least he didn’t play, “We won’t get fooled again.”

The best player on the planet under age 21 is undoubtedly Mike Trout of the Angels. The 20-year-old outfielder is hitting .354 with an OPS (on-base plus slugging) percentage of 1.013. The kid has good power (16 homers) and Mickey Mantle-like speed with 31 stolen bases to lead Major League Baseball.

Barring injury or a total meltdown, Trout is a cinch to win Rookie of the Year — but he’s not the only great player under 28 making a difference this year. Here are some other young stars:

• Anthony Rizzo, Chicago Cubs. Hitting .317 with 6HR in just 26 games
• Jordan Pacheco, Colorado Rockies. .300 avg. with only 29 strikeouts in 243 AB
• Yoenis Cespedes, Oakland A’s. He’s hitting .299 with 13 home runs
• Will Middlebrooks, Boston Red Sox. .296 with 12 homers and .841 OPS
• Quintin Berry, Detroit Tigers. Hitting .286 with 15 stolen bases
• Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals. .265 with 9HR and 13 stolen bases

And these are the top rookie pitchers so far this year:

• Wade Miley, Arizona Diamondbacks. 11-6 with 3.11 ERA and 88K’s
• Yu Darvish, Texas Rangers. 11-7 with 138 strikeouts
• Tommy Milone, Oakland A’s. 9-7 with 93K’s and WHIP of 1.19

For the Oakland Athletics, L.A. Angels and many other teams, the young kids are leading the way.

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The Angels are soaring now after acquiring Zach Greinke, perhaps the most coveted of all available pitchers, just four days before the trading deadline.

Greinke Makes Angels Great

Greinke was 9-3 with the Brewers with a 3.44 ERA. The 28-year-old right hander gives the Angels a solid rotation (Jared Weaver, Dan Haren)  that now includes a pitcher who posts nearly a strikeout an inning.  As a member of the Kansas City Royals three years ago, Greinke won the American League Cy Young award.

Now the Angels have the wings, the arms and the bats (Albert Pujols, Mike Trout) to win it all. I predicted pre-season the Angels would win the American League pennant. And tonight, they may have just captured the flag.

In a scene that could have come from “The Natural”, highly-heralded rookie Starling Marte hit one out of the park, on the very first pitch he saw in the Major Leagues.

Rookie Rocks

Marte became the first Pirates player to do so since June 1961. Since 2000, thirteen players have hit homers on their very first pitch. Most of them were one-hit wonders — no-names who never really made it big in the Bigs. The one exception might be Kevin Kouzmanoff, who delivered the goods in his first at bat as a member of the Cleveland Indians in 2006.

But there are indications this kid Marte may be special. He hit .520 in a dozen games with the Bucs during spring training this year, before being sent down to Triple-A. Then in his first game as a real Pirate, he clubbed the first pitch he saw over the left field wall in Houston.

After the game, Marte called his grandmother in the Dominican Republic to tell her the good news. He’ll present her the ball when he sees her next — as a token of gratitude for the woman who raised him.

Now that’s what truly makes Starling a star, in my eyes. Here’s looking at you kid.

PNC Park

It will be fun to watch him play in one of MLB’s most beautiful parks.