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Bar Chat

06/26/2017

Baseball's Pace of Play Issue

[Posted Sunday p.m.]

Baseball: New York / San Francisco Giants Quiz: 1) In their long history, going back to 1883-84 when they were the Gothams, only six have hit 200 home runs in their Giants’ career.  Name ‘em.  2) Name the only five with 1,000 RBIs (No. 5, who is not part of the answer for question No. 1, being a Hall of Famer and pre-1950).  Answers below.

MLB

--Clayton Kershaw improved to 11-2, 2.47 with six shutout innings in a 4-0 win over the Rockies in L.A. on Saturday, the scalding hot Dodgers’ ninth win in a row, 15 of 16, a stretch in which they’ve outscored the Nationals, Reds, Indians, Mets and Rockies 108-57.  [And as I go to post, they are defeating Colorado today 12-6 in the eighth.]

Friday, L.A.’s Alex Wood improved his record to 8-0, 1.86 ERA, in a 6-1 win over Colorado.  I mean this is a guy who has been solid, when healthy, in his brief career with the Dodgers and Braves, but this?

--The Orioles have been struggling mightily, thanks in no small part to a historically bad streak by their pitching staff.  Until Baltimore defeated Tampa Bay 8-3 in St. Pete on Saturday, the Orioles had tied a major league record going back to 1924 of giving up at least five runs in 20 straight games.  So they had a chance to break a record set in ’24 by the Phillies.

Baltimore entered Sunday’s play 36-38, and just 12-24 on the road.  The Orioles had started the season 22-10.

And they won again on Sunday, 8-5; 37-38, 13-24.

--Back on May 28, Angels superstar Mike Trout “sprained” his thumb in a 9-2 loss to the Braves, but the team learned the next day he would need surgery to repair a torn ligament. They were 26-27, which was a solid start for this otherwise lousy squad, and I was among many pronouncing them dead for the season.

But after beating Boston on Saturday in Beantown, Los Angeles was 39-39 and just two games back in the wild card hunt, which is going to be a crazy race down the stretch in the A.L., which is good because the N.L. wild card race is non-existent, the Cubs trailing for the second spot by 7 ½ after Saturday’s play.

Give Angels manager Mike Scioscia a ton of credit.  There’s a reason why he is one of the best.

And get this.  Los Angeles is 12-0 on Tuesdays this season!

The Angels won Sunday, 4-2, so now 40-39.

Trout is due back in a few weeks, last I saw.

--The Yankees started 21-9, then played mediocre ball for a long stretch, then won six in a row to get to 38-23, but since then are 2-10, 40-33, after another loss on Sunday, 7-6 to the Rangers at the Stadium.  The hitting hasn’t been consistent and the pitching has sucked.

I do have to note that for Texas, on Saturday in the Rangers’ 8-1 win, starter Austin Bibens-Dirkx, a career 32-year-old minor leaguer in his first big league season, improved to 3-0.

For New York, Aaron Judge’s 26th home run Saturday left him just three behind Joe DiMaggio’s 29-homer rookie record set back in 1936.

With the Red Sox’ loss today, New York and Boston are tied for first.

--The Mets, 34-41, swept the Giants in San Francisco this weekend, the Giants now 27-51!  Good lord, they suck worse than my Metsies!

The Mets announced Sunday they were promoting Tim Tebow and his .223 batting average (.340 slugging percentage) to high-A St. Lucie from low-A Columbia.  GM Sandy Alderson said Tebow’s metrics prove he is improving.  You and I know it’s about capturing some merchandise sales.

Hey, I want the guy to do well, but I also told you I thought he would hang it up at mid-season if he was having the kind of year he has to date.  That said, I hope he hits a few homers and sells a billion jerseys.

--Sunday, Minnesota’s Ervin Santana moved to 10-4, 2.80, with six scoreless in the Twinkies’ 4-0 win over the Indians, Minnesota sweeping Chief Wahoo and Co. in Cleveland to move a half-game in front of Bob Feller’s old club in the A.L. Central.

--On the topic of pace of play, two heavyweights weighed in this weekend.

George Will / Washington Post...from Omaha

“From Little League on up, players emulate major leaguers, so Major League Baseball’s pace-of-play problem is trickling down. Four innings into a recent College World Series game here, just seven hits and three runs had consumed 96 minutes. During a coach’s visit to the pitcher’s mound, the other team’s three base runners visited their dugout to confer with their coach. The Congress of Vienna moved more briskly.

“One of the six games of the 1948 Boston-Cleveland World Series was 1 hour and 31 minutes; the average, 2 hours. This year the average nine-inning game is 3 hours and 4 minutes, up 4 minutes from last year and 14 minutes from 2010.  MLB’s worry, however, is less the length of games than that the length has increased as action – batters putting balls in play – has decreased.

“This season, more than 30 percent of at-bats are ending with walks or strikeouts. Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci cites the June 2 Dodgers-Brewers game, won by the Dodgers 2-1 in 12 innings: Of 90 plate appearances, 42 were strikeouts.  Only 40 resulted in the ball in play – an average of once every six minutes.  Three home runs produced all the scoring.

“In one of baseball’s greatest games – the Pirates’ 10-9 victory, on Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer, over the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series – there were no strikeouts.  Two pitchers in this game, the Yankees’ Bobby Shantz and the Pirates’ Elroy Face, were 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 8 inches, respectively.

“MLB’s problems are related to its players being ever-stronger and increasingly using what baseball people call ‘analytics,’ a.k.a. information. Consider two related facts about today’s all-or-nothing – strike out or home run – baseball:

“This April, there were a record 16.5 strikeouts per game. And by June 15, there had been 50 home runs in one day five times, tying the single-season record – set just last year.  Pitch velocities and spin rates (which sharpen pitch movement) are up.  Hitters, like pitchers, are bigger and stronger (Mickey Mantle was just 5 feet 11 inches and 195 pounds) and are confronting a surge in defensive shifts driven by data about hitters’ propensities: Shifts have increased from 2,357 in 2011 to 28,131 in 2016.  So hitters are elevating their swings’ trajectories in order to drive the ball over, rather than through, defenders....

“MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred says that fans in the ballpark tolerate the sluggish pace of play; they can check the scoreboard, get a beer, chat. But broadcast audiences are dwindling:  Even self-described ‘avid’ fans watch an average of only 50 minutes, then drift away.”

I have a confession to make.  I went to a high school game this spring, two good ballclubs, Summit and Cranford, and left after three innings because there was no action.  Just strikeouts and walks.  I was thinking, who would want to play this game, vs., say, lacrosse, which in these parts continues to rocket higher in participation.

The only enticement for today’s youth is the opportunity for a college scholarship and, for some, big money if you make it all the way to the big time.  Otherwise, it’s not a good picture.

I’ve held off on my thoughts since I went to the game because it’s almost sacrilegious for such a huge fan of the sport such as myself to utter such thoughts, but it’s the truth.

Tom Verducci / Sports Illustrated

“Unlike most sports, baseball’s beauty is not only in its action but also in the anticipation of its action. The brief interludes allow conversation among friends, a pondering of the strategies and outcomes that may come next, and the hope – with caps turned backward and inside out – for the greatest excitement the game can allow, the extended rally.

“That game is disappearing.  In its place grows a game obsessed with power. It is driven by the pursuit of the most blunt of outcomes: strikeouts by pitchers and home runs by batters. Both outcomes, which render useless defense, baserunning and teamwork, happen more frequently this year than ever before....

“The chesslike quality of the game has tilted toward checkers.  One-third of all turns at bat now end without the ball in play, an all-time high: either a strikeout (at a record high for a 10th straight year), a walk (the highest in eight years) or a home run (an all-time high), the so-called three true outcomes promulgated by the sabermetric community....

“As strikeouts and home runs increase, so does the time players take to gear up for these max-effort battles. Each pitch brings a slow diligence as if scrubbing for surgery or calibrating the splitting of an atom.  The quaint interludes between balls regularly put in play have become yawning gaps of nothingness.”

--Kind of shocking the fall of Chicago’s Kyle Schwarber, who just seven months after helping lead the Cubs to the World Series was sent down to the minors, hitting .171, with 75 strikeouts in 222 at-bats.  He was batting only .143 against lefties.

--Back to the Mets, in 2012, with the 12th overall pick in the draft, the Mets selected a shortstop, Gavin Cecchini.  Six picks later, the Dodgers picked a shortstop, Corey Seager.

In 2013, with the 116th pick of the draft, the Mets selected L.J. Mazzilli, son of Lee Mazzilli.  Eight picks later, the Dodgers selected Cody Bellinger, son of former utility man Clay Bellinger.  [Kevin Kernan / New York Post]

Oh yeah, the Mets are good.

--We note the passing of longtime Mets groundskeeper Pete Flynn, 79.

Flynn was with the Mets since their inception in 1962, the team naming him head groundskeeper in 1974, a post he held until 2001.  But rather than retire, he rejoined the crew!

Pete Flynn had some brushes with history outside of baseball.  After the Beatles played their historic Shea Stadium show in 1965, he drove John, Paul, George and Ringo from center stage to the center-field fence, where an armored car waited to help them escape the 56,000 screaming fans.

Then, 43 years later he drove Paul McCartney to the stage in a golf cart when McCartney made a surprise appearance at a Billy Joel show, the last concert held at Shea.

College World Series

Back to Wednesday and the last six teams, LSU eliminated Florida State, 7-4.

Thursday, TCU eliminated Louisville, 4-3...bye-bye, ACC.

Friday, now with four teams left, LSU beat Oregon State 3-1, while TCU defeated Florida 9-2.

So with everyone having lost once in the tournament in this double-elimination event, the above four met again Saturday to decide who would proceed to the finals.

LSU then completed its upset of No. 1 Oregon State 6-1, and Florida advanced to the final with a 3-0 win over TCU.

LSU-Florida now commence a best-of-three on Monday for the title, LSU having won its three elimination games in the tournament, with Michael Papierski homering twice in Saturday’s clincher, the first to do so in a CWS game in seven years.  [Plus he did it from both sides of the plate.]

I can’t help but add that it was Florida who Wake Forest had its titanic super regional against, thus showing how good the Deacs really were, two of the games going 11 innings.

As for the OSU Beavers, they finished the year 56-6, a .903 winning percentage, the best in college ball since Texas’ .908 in 1982.  It didn’t help that they were without star pitcher Luke Heimlich, but there is no reason to rehash this one.

Meanwhile, the Beaverwear is heading back to the bottom of the sports drawer at Bar Chat.  Deaconwear is edging up for football season.  Very hopeful, Wake Forest fans.  And very optimistic about the coming hoops season, even without John Collins.

NBA Draft

1. Philadelphia (from Boston), Markelle Fultz, g, Washington
2. L.A. Lakers, Lonzo Ball, g, UCLA
3. Boston (from Sacramento through Philadelphia), Jayson Tatum, f, Duke...mild surprise for moi
4. Phoenix, Josh Jackson, f, Kansas...liking this guy’s prospects more and more
5. Sacramento (from Philadelphia), De’Aaron Fox, g, Kentucky...my man!
6. Orlando, Jonathan Isaac, f, Florida State
7. Minnesota, Lauri Markkanen, f, Arizona...he then went to Chicago as part of a trade
8. New York, Frank Ntilikina, g, France
9. Dallas, Dennis Smith Jr., g, North Carolina State
10. Sacramento, Zach Collins, c, Gonzaga...then to Portland as part of a trade
11. Charlotte, Malik Monk, g, Kentucky
19. Atlanta, John Collins, f, Wake Forest

As a Knicks fan, I wanted us to take Malik Monk, who shockingly dropped into Charlotte’s lap, at 11. Even Kentucky coach John Calipari said Monk should have been selected by the Knicks. I obviously have no idea how good 18-year-old Ntilikina will be, but Phil Jackson did call it right when he took Kristaps Porzingis two years ago.

Jackson’s reaction to Porzingis blowing off his exit interview in mid-April, though, has been way over the top.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a player over 25 years of coaching not coming to an exit meeting, so it hasn’t happened to me.  It happens to other people and other players.”

Of course Jackson should have just demanded a sit-down with Porzingis in April and resolved matters diplomatically, but this is the supreme asshole in the sport these days and Knicks fans suffer as a result.  At least he didn’t pull the trigger on a threatened trade ahead of the draft.

Meanwhile, Atlanta fans got the steal of the draft in Wake’s John Collins at 19.  Yeah, he was slated 15-17 so I’m not sure it’s technically a ‘steal’ under the loose definitions of what a steal is.

Actually, the real steal, at 38, is Oregon forward Jordan Bell, who was taken by Chicago and then traded to Golden State for cash.  Love Bell.  He’ll be an instant favorite in Oakland.

--But the biggest overall steal on draft night was the Minnesota Timberwolves’ acquiring Jimmy Butler in a trade with the Bulls, which immediately catapults the T’Wolves to a contender in the West; Minnesota sending Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and the No. 7 pick (which turned into Lauri Markkanen).

The Bulls are now in full-blown rebuilding mode, while Butler joins Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and point guard Ricky Rubio

--Philadelphia 76ers fans are duly excited with Markelle Fultz joining the likes of Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor and Dario Saric, plus they still have a ton of future draft picks and, as one of the 13 Philadelphia fans, Mark R., keeps telling me, they are stockpiling big men in Europe in case the oft-injured Embiid goes down again.  A .500 finish this coming season would be a terrific first step for the organization and prove “The Process” is finally working.

[Knicks fans are expecting a 22-60 campaign.  Kind of like the Jets’ going 3-13.  And the Mets’ 72-90....where’s my sword?!!!]

--As for the Lakers and Lonzo Ball and that other guy....

Bill Plaschke / Los Angeles Times

“It took Lonzo Ball 19 years to make the storybook trip from Chino Hills to UCLA to the Lakers.

“It took his father LaVar about two minutes to hijack the journey.

“Almost immediately after Lonzo was smartly selected by the Lakers as the number-two overall pick in the 2017 draft Thursday, his infamously big-mouthed Pops popped off.

“In an interview with ESPN, instead of simply singing his son’s praises, he widened the target that already sits on his son’s back.

“ ‘Lonzo Ball is going to take the Lakers to the playoffs his first year,’ LaVar chortled.  ‘Come see me when he does. I’ll have another hat on that says, ‘I told you so.’’

“And so perhaps the Lakers welcomed their dazzling new point guard with just the tiniest cringe.

“ ‘I’m a very optimistic person, but I don’t look that far into the future,’ said Lakers coach Luke Walton of LaVar’s prediction.  ‘Right now, I’m hoping [Lonzo] leads us to a couple of summer league victories.’

“It’s funny, but it’s not. It was interesting, but it’s stale. It was harmless, but now it’s business.

“Now that Lonzo Ball has fulfilled his father’s very loud dream that he play for the Lakers, his father needs to shut up.”

--The Clippers were informed Friday that Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are opting out of their contracts to become free agents, but the team has said in the past they would re-sign them at max deals.

Paul would have received $22.8 million next season, and Griffin, $20.1 million, but now both can earn mega, mega-bucks...Paul $205 million over five seasons; Griffin, $175 million over five.

Unbelievably absurd money for two real losers, with Griffin very injury-prone, but this is how the new NBA collective bargaining agreement shakes out.

The Clippers also can offer the fifth year, whereas if the players went elsewhere, the max they can sign with another team is for four years, and at less money ($130 million over four for Griffin, for example).  [Broderick Turner / L.A. Times]

Paul and Griffin are still expected to talk to other clubs, with the heavy rumor of Paul to San Antonio, so we’ll see.  [Not that I really give a damn.]

Golf Balls

--Wow...what a finish at the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, CT, today, with 23-year-old Jordan Spieth picking up his 10th PGA Tour title on the first hole of a playoff with Daniel Berger, Spieth dramatically holing his sand shot.

The other day I noted how a poll showed Spieth to be the most popular player on tour, and we had another example today of why he is.  He wears his emotions on his sleeve, is brutally honest during a round, often with each shot, and at the end, he is kind to everyone and generous with his praise of others, including today, his caddie, Michael Greller.

So Spieth is the second youngest of all time to 10 wins, trailing Tiger Woods by four months, Jack Nicklaus being third.

But what a great tournament for the week following the U.S. Open, with Rory McIlroy (T-17 with a final round 64), Jason Day and Justin Thomas in the field, both of these two missing the cut.  There were record crowds.

--On the senior circuit, Fred Couples won the Champions Tour event in Madison, Wisconsin, by two over Scott Verplank.  Host Steve Striker was T-3, while 63-year-old Jay Haas was T-6.  As Ronald Reagan would have said of the Demon Deacon great, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’

--Interesting story has come out of the PGA Professional Championships last week, as Omar Uresti, who joined the PGA Tour full time in 1995 and had played 356 events without winning, defeated Dave McNabb, the head pro at Applebrook Golf Club in Malvern, Pa., on the second playoff hole for his first win.  Uresti had won twice on the Web.com tour.

The thing is, Uresti has never worked as a club or teaching professional, which is what the event is for, the club pros.

It seems Uresti began playing in section major tournaments and no one seems to have paid attention to it.

Uresti then started qualifying for the national club pro championship.

Under the rules, Uresti does have the right to play as a 20-year member of the PGA Tour, but the PGA of America probably never thought an active tour player would come in and play section events and now Uresti has played in three PGA Professional Championships and finished fifth, second and first, which in turn has earned him starts in the PGA Championship for the big boys three straight years, which he otherwise wouldn’t have qualified for.

The PGA of America ruled the other day Uresti is eligible to compete in the PGA Professional Championship.

And now Uresti will be in the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in August.  Deserved?

U.S. Track & Field Championships

This is the qualifier for the World Championships in London, next August, and among the winners in Sacramento over the weekend was veteran Justin Gatlin, who outdueled 21-year-old NCAA champ Christian Coleman to win the 100 meters. Gatlin ran it in 9.95, into a headwind, with Coleman at 9.98.  So once again Gatlin will have a final shot at Usain Bolt in the world championships.  It will be Bolt’s final race.  [But his Jamaican teammate, Yohan Blake, is recovered from injury and might be the favorite.]

I didn’t realize what a spectacular year it has been for Tennessee’s Coleman, who captured both the indoor and outdoor NCAA championships in the 100 and 200 outdoors, 60 and 200 indoors.

Tori Bowie won the women’s 100.

Olympic gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz was caught just before the finish of the 1,500 meters as Robby Andrews picked up his first national title, winning in 3:43.29 to Centrowitz’ 3:43.41.

Keni Harrison won the women’s 100-meter hurdles, her first U.S. outdoor championship in Team USA’s strongest event, the United States having swept in Rio.

Trey Hardee won his fourth U.S. championship in the decathlon and will be competing in his fifth world championships, which he has won twice.

Vashti Cunningham, Randall’s daughter, won the high jump, 6 feet, 6 ¼ inches.  The 19-year-old had finished 13th in Rio, but will from here on become a major factor in the worlds and Olympics the next ten years.

I don’t have time to get into today’s finals, but I see Alysson Felix didn’t start in the 200 final, and so I really don’t care about anything else, the editor wrote with a smile, worshipping Ms. Felix as I do....

...OK, New Jersey high school superstar Sydney McLaughlin finished 6th in the 400m hurdles final, Dalilah Muhammad winning it, and Ajee’ Wilson won the women’s 800.  U.S. women rock!!! 

Stuff

--Kevin Harvick won his first Monster Energy NASCAR race of the year at Sonoma today.  I missed the Monster girls at this one.  My bad.  Please don’t hold it against me.

--Edmonton Oilers forward Connor McDavid won the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP, McDavid just 20 and in his second year.  He won the Art Ross Trophy for most points with 100.  He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft.

The Calder Trophy (best rookie) went to Auston Matthews, the Maple Leafs’ No. 1 overall selection in 2016, who led all rookies with 40 goals and 69 points.

The Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship went to Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau, born and raised in New Jersey and a Boston College alum.  [Had to get this in for these two constituencies.]

--The Oakland Raiders just handed quarterback Derek Carr a five-year, $25 million per deal, making him the highest-paid player in NFL history, surpassing the $24.6 million average annual value of Andrew Luck’s contract with Indianapolis.

The Raiders are all in to win a Super Bowl for a city they are preparing to leave in 2019 or 2020 when their new Las Vegas digs are completed.  They have already sold out all their tickets for 2017 in Oakland, quite a feat there.

Detroit’s Matthew Stafford, who is entering the final season of a contract that will pay him $16.5 million this year, is expected to sign an extension for more than Carr’s deal.

--We note the passing of legendary college football coach, Frank Kush.  He was 88.

Kush transformed Arizona State from a backwater football program into a powerhouse, putting ASU on the map before it was even a full-scale university, as ASU President Michael M. Crow said the other day.

Kush compiled a 176-54-1 record while coaching the Sun Devils from 1958 to 1979; winning the Peach Bowl in 1970 and the first three Fiesta Bowls, including 1975 when the team went 12-0, capped by a 17-14 Fiesta Bowl victory over Nebraska.

But Kush’s intense style led to his firing in October 1979 for what the university said was interference in an internal investigation of allegations by a former player of physical and mental harassment against the coach.

Kush was then head coach of the NFL’s Colts for two seasons in Baltimore and one in Indianapolis, 1982-84, compiling an 11-28-1 record.

After a long period of estrangement, Kush was brought back to ASU in 1996, the school holding a “Frank Kush Day” and naming the playing field at Sun Devil Stadium “Frank Kush Field.”

Kush was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995.

--The Yellowstone grizzly bear has been removed from the endangered species list, in a move first initiated by the Obama administration after the population has grown from a low of 136 in 1975 to an estimated 700 in Greater Yellowstone, which includes parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, according to the Interior Department.

Environmental groups condemned the move, as states regain their authority to resume trophy hunts that have been banned for 40 years, though grizzlies would remain protected from hunting in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.  [Of course local ranches are preparing to gun down the ones who haven’t learned to read WARNING signs yet.]

--John McEnroe’s memoir, “But Seriously,” is out this week, and it sounds rather entertaining.  McEnroe, for example, says the Studio 54 era wasn’t all it was cranked up to be – complaining that he often had trouble getting in, and how Andy Warhol was “annoying.”

Of Warhol, McEnroe writes, “He was always there at every party I was ever at, taking your picture late at night, even when you were super f---ed up...I remember thinking, ‘Who is this weirdo with the fake hair? Why is he waving his camera around when we’re here at 3 in the morning?  Isn’t there a place that could be off-limits?”

McEnroe complains that Warhol interfered with his sex life, saying that at late-night parties, where one might “loosen your collar and try to find a good-looking model or whatever,” the artist “always seemed to be up in everyone’s face with his camera, being a pain in the ass.”

--President Trump needs to be called out for driving his golf cart on a green of his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.  Yeah, it’s his course, but he is supposed to be an example of how to behave in the gentlemanly sport we all love.  Into the December file he goes, the first president to be so notified.  [This will require Secret Service clearance, even though it’s just a folded post-it.]

--Dominic Green in the Wall Street Journal has a glowing review of songwriter Jimmy Webb’s autobiography, “The Cake and the Rain,” the story of how Webb (who wrote classics such as “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Wichita Lineman” for Glen Campbell) wanted to be a rock superstar, not a studio hand, and it nearly killed him.

“It is novelistic, perfectly plotted and quite possibly the best pop-star autobiography yet written.”

Top 3 songs for the week 6/24/72: #1 “The Candy Man” (Sammy Davis, Jr. with the Mike Curb Congregation)  #2 “Song Sung Blue” (Neil Diamond)  #3 “Outa-Space” (Billy Preston)...and...#4 “Nice To Be With You” (Gallery)  #5 “I’ll Take You There” (The Staple Singers)  #6 “Troglodyte (Cave Man)” (The Jimmy Castor Bunch) #7 “Lean On Me” (Bill Withers)  #8 “(Last Night) I didn’t Get To Sleep At All” (The 5th Dimension)  #9 “Oh Girl” (Chi-Lites)  #10 “Too Late To Turn Back Now” (Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose)

Baseball: New York / San Francisco Giants Quiz: 1) 200 HR: Willie Mays, 646; Barry Bonds, 586; Mel Ott, 511; Willie McCovey, 469; Matt Williams, 247; Orlando Cepeda, 226. 2) 1,000 RBI: Ott, 1,860; Mays, 1,859; Bonds, 1,440; McCovey, 1,388; Bill Terry, 1,078.  Hall of Famer Terry, 1923-36, hit .341 for his career, including .401 in 1930.  He had 2,193 hits, with six 200-hit seasons, and six 100-RBI campaigns.

By the way, when I saw the New York Gothams, 1883-84, that got me wondering, just how did this name for the city come about and according to Wikipedia, it originated with Washington Irving in 1807, Irving using it in one of his periodicals, and it caught on.

Ya learn something new every day, boys and girls!

[Julius Irving, by the way, is not related to Washington Irving, in case any of you were wondering.  Nor Kyrie, for that matter.]

Next Bar Chat, Thursday.

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