Matt Kemp is off to an incredible start this season, hitting .425/.495/.888 with 11 home runs and 24 RBIs through Sunday. He's so hot that it has prompted the question as to whether or not Kemp is having the greatest April ever by a hitter, and if not, just where he ranks on the all-time list. (For a look at hot starts by pitchers see my story on Jered Weaver from a year ago.)
Congratulations to Barry Larkin, who was elected to the Hall of Fame on Monday with the credentials of everything you would want in an elite player. Larkin played every phase of the game well, redefined his position, shortstop, never had to change positions or change teams and boasted a healthy peak and longevity to his career. Joe Morgan, another Reds great, said it best when he remarked, "Barry Larkin's election to the Baseball Hall of Fame comes at a time when statistics are as important as the eye test, and Barry passes both tests. When you watched him play you knew he was a special player."
NEW YORK -- In introducing Bert Blyleven to the assembled media at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel Thursday morning, Baseball Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson referred to him as "the first Dutchman" to be elected "but not the first to give a hot foot." The quip drew a laugh as Blyleven was known nearly as well for his off-field pranks as for his biting curveball and 287 career wins during his 22-year career.
Just another night in the life of the best player in baseball went something like this, at least as far as last Friday the 13th:
Major League Baseball's July 31 trading deadline is often referred to as simply that, when in reality it is actually the non-waiver trade deadline, the last date that players can be traded without being passed through waivers first. Waivers are a process whereby each team, in reverse order of the overall standings the previous year, is given the opportunity to claim a player. If a claim is placed, the original team can either allow the claim (letting the player go without compensation), take the player off waivers (at which point he's effectively untradeable), or try to work out a trade with the claiming team. Each August, the majority of major league players are placed on waivers, and most are taken off once a claim is made. Sometimes, as in the case of Alex Rios last year, the claim is allowed. Sometimes, a trade is worked out with the claiming team, and sometimes the player makes it all the way through and can be put back on the trade market for any and all takers.
The Hall of Fame clock is about to tick much faster for the stars of the 1980s. Another election has passed without the likes of Tim Raines, Jack Morris and Dale Murphy getting very close to enshrinement. Even worse, they have only two years remaining before an avalanche of candidates joins them on the ballot, threatening not only to harm their candidacies but also to flat-out end them.
If you are about my age*, then you grew up as a baseball fan with three statistics and only three statistics. There was batting average. There were home runs runs. And there were RBIs. That was it.
Chipper Jones single-handedly has made batting average cool again, as soothing to a baseball romantic as vinyl to an audiophile. Yes, we have better, more advanced delivery systems of baseball statistics and rock and roll, but if you're searching for some old-school soul, the chase for .400 is where it's at.
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