I Have a Bad Feeling About This.

      A quick look at the date means I should be saying "May the Fourth be with you" and post some Star Wars cards but I just can't do it.  I know you all feel the same way but it has hit me hard this week:

Dear god, I miss baseball so fucking much!!!

Yes, I am shouting and I don't care who hears me.  I rode out April in quarantine just kind of imagining it was a second February.  February is long painful month most years - it's cold, the holidays and football are over, baseball only begins to emerge from the winter - let's face it, February sucks.  This April was February part 2, just an awful fate for what is usually a wonderful month.  And now it seems we are all dug in and the virus is going to stick around all summer and it is seriously beginning to look like we are going to get little to no baseball at all this year.  There is only so much radio replays of world series broadcasts and twitter posts about what happened on this day I can take. Even during times when I was trapped inside due to depression or unemployment or sickness or some combination of those things, there was baseball to look forward to in the evenings to pass the time and distract the mind.  But the weight of our collective situation is hitting hard: we might not have baseball to get us through this.  And for any foreseeable future, the next couple months definitely won't have baseball.  Just writing this rambling paragraph is driving me crazy and pissing me off.   I am going through the entire Kübler-Ross in 250 words or less.  *sigh*

I have been dealing with my lockdown by spring cleaning.  And I mean capital-C Cleaning.  The whole house has never looked better.  So many things have been organized, thrown out, or scrubbed.  But I am running out of things.  I am doing the big parts of the baseball collection and saving the actual sorting of cards for last.  After that, well, I don't want to think about that.  I do a lot of reading in general, both online nonsense and actual books, and I have been diving into more baseball history than any of the virtual seasons that some websites have been running.  Today, on what is usually a Star Wars-centric day, I read a fun TDIH baseball thing and I will now bring everything together and focus on that.  This month is my birthday month, I will be 45 on the 27th.  On May 4, 2007 Julio Franco hit a home run (what would be his last) at the age of 48 years and 254 days.  This is the record for the oldest player ever to hit a home run.

This home run is on the card in the lower left; rare that I have the exact moment on hand.

Even more fun?  That home run was hit off of Randy Johnson, who was 43 years old at the time (and 239 days).  That is 92+ years of pitch and homer!  This is obviously the record for that obscure mark and I imagine it is one that will stand for quite a while.  This little fact has made me feel both very old and surprisingly young at the same time.

In fact, this is as good a time as ever to start a series called Players I Like For No Reason.  PILFNR - it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?  Julio Franco is a great example of a PILFNR.

Actually, we are off to a bad start because there is a very clear reason I have liked Julio Franco for basically his entire 400 year career - he has the coolest batting stance ever.  Like a lot of kids on the playground and in the batting cage, I liked to copy major leaguers and their stances.  Hell, there is a lovable doofus who turned this into an entire shtick. Alas, I was just an amateur and never saw the future in mimicking the likes of Eric Davis, Gary Sheffield, Don Mattingly, Howard Johnson, Darryl Strawberry, Mickey Tettleton and the like.   But my favorite by far was definitely Julio Franco.  In case you are unaware, you can clearly see his stance on four cards on this next page...

The man stood up basically straight, turned his hip inward, and held the bat over his head back at a 270 degree angle pointing to the pitcher.  And it was actually weirder than I just described.  And somehow it worked! He used the fastest wrists I ever saw to turn the bat, whip it though the hitting zone, and terrorize pitchers until he was 50 years old.  He was amazing and unlike anyone before or since.  I enjoyed the hell out of watching him at the very end of his career on the Mets but he will always be one of those players I always dug way before his association with the blue and orange.

Okay, that bit of giddiness over Julio Franco has made me feel a little bit better, sorry if this post was a little all over the place.  I am going to go watch the despecialized version of the original Star Wars and plan on my tacos and margaritas for tomorrow.  Stay safe and sane everyone.

Four For The Hall.

       Last year the baseball writers saw fit to elect three very worthy men to the Hall of Fame. This year, in an almost unfathomable gesture of generosity, they elected four very worthy men, the first time they have elected four players in 60 years.  Bravo, BBWAA, bra-fucking-vo.

Randy Johnson.

The Big Unit got 97.3% of the vote - more than Maddux!

Johnson is, was, and always will be a freak of nature, equal parts Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Wilt Chamberlain, and spider monkey.  I think John Kruk said it all without saying a thing about what it was like to hit against him.

Pedro Martinez.

Petey got 91.1% of the vote.  I know there are always dumbasses who don't vote for first year players, which is why someone like Randy Johnson "only" gets 97.3% of the vote, but that nonsense is to be expected.  I know it is picking nits to a pathetic degree, but I find the percentage Pedro got to be more insulting.  I would like to interview the 49 men who thought he wasn't all Hall of Famer with these numbers during the steroid era.  I could and will argue that Pedro's 1999-2000 are the two best back-to-back pitching seasons ever.  Bar none.

Martinez is the polar opposite of Randy Johnson in terms of personality and body type but I find it very satisfying that they are going into the Hall together. No two pitchers laughed in the face of the cartoon inflated offensive statistics of the 90s and aughts with more aplomb than Pedro and Randy. 

Craig Biggio.

Craig Biggio (finally!) got in with 82.7% of the vote.  I guess he had a really good year last year which propelled him over the top, right?  That's how it works?  Hello?  Is this thing on?

I wrote very long and passionately about Biggio last year when he missed being elected by two freaking votes.  I suggest going back to read that post if you haven't already because it is one of the finest things I have ever written on this blog.

John Smoltz. 

Smoltz got in with 82.9% of the vote.  I broke from numerical protocol in listing the four new members and went with, what is in my eyes, overall worthiness.  John Smoltz was, I'll admit even as a Mets fan, a great pitcher for a long time.  His career is sort of a photo negative of Dennis Eckersley's and Eck went in on the first ballot too.  But I pause when Smoltz gets in on the first ballot when Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling, two pitchers who are both contemporaries and statistically superior, are on the outside looking in.  This is sort of where the writers lost their way in this vote. 

     Oh, you might ask, where else did they go awry?  Well, there is one glaring omission once again this year - and for the third year in a row.  I ranted about Biggio (amongst other things) last year, but was so mad about the Mike Piazza thing that I couldn't bring myself to actually condense into words their failings at not electing him.  And yes, I am aware that it is almost impossible that he won't get in next year.  But believe me my friends, my thoughts about Mike Piazza are going to come fast and furious and soon.  I know I haven't posted much in the last couple months (for a variety of reasons), but leave it to the baseball writers to wake the sleeping bear.