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Wild and Wooly Band: live at Whiskey Glasses 2019

Terry's Barroom Baseball Blog

Doing the Math – how many atbats and innings have been played?

Doing some math: Through the 2016 season, according to Fangraphs, these are baseball’s cumulative totals: Games – 416,061 Innings – 3,711,690 Plate appearances – 13,021,144 Hits – 3,728,918 Runs – 1,891,430 eErned runs – 1,587,196 Walks – 1,310,912 Strikeouts – 2,041,383 • One percent of the total plate appearances is roughly 130,000, or 13 times 10,000 […]

Hall of Fame – it’s not just “if” but also “when?” – and real versus theoretical

Roy Halladay has two Cy Young awards, a couple of seconds and a third. He got over 200 wins, and he pitched a no-hitter in the post-season. His career winning percentage is among the best ever, and his career era+ is 131. He’s going to get in the Hall of Fame; the real question isn’t […]

Sorting and Collating the Backs of Baseball Cards

Before we try to answer the value question, we have to agree on what the question is. Are we ranking, or honoring? Are we looking for the best player, or the best statue? You can’t answer the Hall of Fame question based only on statistics. The Hall of Fame isn’t a competition; nobody is choosing […]

The Hall of Fame – Beautifully Flawed, or Hopelessly Dysfunctional?

Perfection isn’t always perfect. Artistically speaking, perfection is just about the worst thing that can happen. There is no resolution without dissonance, and no warmth without the specter of cold. As all good versus evil arguments go, there can’t be one without the other. It is my opinion that the lack of perfection – the […]

Sammy Sosa and the perils of decentralization

The problem with statistical normalization is that it doesn’t catch decentralization, or adjust for an uneven ability to take advantage of decentralization. In my mind, Sosa was a terrific power hitter without the PEDs, but he was approaching 30 and established at a lower level when he exploded in 1998. Like McGwire, to me anyway, […]

Obituaries

RIP: Gershwin of the Livery Stables
Terry 0 Comments
Paul Vance was a prolific songwriter and producer who wrote over a thousand songs that made it to vinyl. He is best-known as half of...
RIP: We’ll Play for You
Terry 0 Comments
If I set out to compile a list of the best musical families, several obvious names would come first (and then the Interweb would flood...
RIP: Queen of the Hollers
Terry 1 Comment
I feel like she was too famous for one of my usual obits ... it would take me weeks to write a proper obituary for...

Doug’s Biography in 1,000 Players

No. 277 Stan Coveleski (Number 63 Pitcher)
The Cleveland baseball franchise hasn’t appeared in too many World Series compared with the other teams and only won two in their history. One of them was due to Stan Coveleski winning 3 games in the 1920 World Series. A...
No. 276 Robin Ventura (Number 22 Third Base)
Robin Ventura ran up to Nolan Ryan after being hit by a pitch. Ventura went low on Ryan, but Ryan quickly grabbed Ventura’s head, put Ventura in a headlock and started punching Ventura on top of the head. Ventura really...
No. 275 Joe Sewell (Number 25 Shortstop)
Joe Sewell was known for not striking out much, if at all. He stuck out 114 times in 8,333 plate appearances or once every out of every 73 plate appearances. Not only that, but his first four full seasons he...
No. 274 Bob Johnson (Number 27 Left Field)
Bob Johnson was consistent as a batter. Sometimes he would do better or worse in a category for a year but go back to normal in the category the next year. In his first 9 years in the National League...
No. 273 Boog Powell (Number 33 First Base)
In the sixth grade it was my first year back from being overseas and I could watch baseball games on TV without a 2-month delay. Our teacher bought a TV into the classroom so we could watch part of the...
No. 272 Bert Campaneris (Number 24 Shortstop)
There is a saying right now you are the average of the 5 friends you hang around with the most. Well the shortstop just above him (Phil Rizzuto) and the three right below him (Joe Sewell, Rabbit Maranville and Joe...
No. 270 Adrian Gonzalez (Number 32 First Base)
Adrian Gonzalez had 11 seasons in a row where he played 156 or more games and had at least 80 RBIs. In the ninth year of that streak, he led the league RBIs with 116, three short of his career...

Terry’s Latest

Gosh, Guvnah
I just downloaded a vulgarity governor app on my phone - it's really cool; it changes all my profane words to gosh. For example, if I say "gosh" it changes it to "gosh." I mean when I say gosh it......
Testing the 2018 GOR candidates
Rick Ankiel, 0.1. Players with at least 40 home runs and 40 games pitched: Babe Ruth (714, 163) Rick Ankiel (76, 51) Johnny Lindell (72, 55) George Van Haltren (69, 93) Cy Seymour (52, 141) Ruth (93), Seymour (61) and Van...
Stop Fooling Around and Play Baseball
Terry, July 8, 2021 A few new rules, for a better game: Let the pitchers have the spider tack. Let ‘em all have the ‘roids. Shrink the strike zone two inches and lower it to the bottom of the knees....
Death Be Not Proud. Or much fun.
Is death itself disturbing? Or is it the realization that death is coming despite you putting every human molecule of your will into surviving? Three disturbing scenes I've seen in movies: A 13-year-old girl who just had her first kiss...
Terry’s American League preview
April 7, 2022 AL EAST Winner: Tampa BayWild Card: TorontoWild Card: Boston Toronto has a loaded lineup, what could be a pretty good infield defense and an imported rotation full of veterans who they hope will stay healthy surrounding top prospect...

Obituaries

RIP: Gershwin of the Livery Stables
Paul Vance was a prolific songwriter and producer who wrote over a thousand songs that made it to vinyl. He is best-known as half of the Vance/Pockriss writing team that wrote “Leader of the Laundromat,” “Catch a Falling Star, “Tracy,”...
RIP: We’ll Play for You
If I set out to compile a list of the best musical families, several obvious names would come first (and then the Interweb would flood me with dozens of others): the Jacksons, the Carter/Cash family, the Osmonds (stop laughing), the...
RIP: Queen of the Hollers
I feel like she was too famous for one of my usual obits ... it would take me weeks to write a proper obituary for Loretta Lynn, and a book publisher to get it distributed. So how about ten things...
RIP: Detroit’s Finest
When I think about Bob Lanier, I think three things: Great player on a team with no directionHuge feet (size 22 shoes)Airplane! Lanier was the prototypical 20-10 player; he averaged 20.1 points and 10.1 rebounds over his 14-year career. He...
RIP: Mr. Patriot
Gino Cappelletti was the Paul Hornung of the AFL, a hybrid player who could beat you from any direction. Primarily a kicker, defensive back and wide receiver, he scored 42 career touchdowns and an AFL record 1,130 points in the...

Book Reports

Charlette’s Web
bearbyzaolcom 2023-05-08 0 Comments
A group of us were having our men’s group and talking about men displaying their emotions and it being Ok for men to cry. While this is more acceptable in society now, I think some people are judgmental about it....
Chuck Cunningham and the Multiverse
bearbyzaolcom 2023-01-11 0 Comments
Chuck Cunningham was a character on a show that started in January 1974 and lasted 11 seasons. He was the older brother of the Cunningham family the main family of the show. The star of the show was Ron Howard...
A Review of “Plain Bad Heroines”
Gary Fletcher 2022-08-04 0 Comments
This book was written by Emily M. Danforth. I bought it at a major book chain based on the writeup on the back. Earlier on this site, I reviewed a book called “The Ten Thousand Doors of January” with my...
A Review of “The Ten Thousand Doors of January”
Gary Fletcher 2022-04-18 0 Comments
This book was written by Alix E. Harrow who is a good writer, but I thought there was somethings missing from her book “The Ten Thousand Doors of January”. First of all, my wife bought the book on Kindle, and...
Book Report: Robert Heinlein, “If This Goes On — “
Terry 2021-07-04 3 Comments
Terry July 3, 2021 “If This Goes On — " is the story of a revolution to wrest control of the United States back from a fundamentalist totalitarian regime, founded by Reverend Nehemiah Scudder, that sprouted up after WWIII destroyed Europe...

Gary Fletcher’s Latest

Charlette’s Web
A group of us were having our men’s group and talking about men displaying their emotions and it being Ok for men to cry. While this is more acceptable in society now, I think some people are judgmental about it....
A Review of “Plain Bad Heroines”
This book was written by Emily M. Danforth. I bought it at a major book chain based on the writeup on the back. Earlier on this site, I reviewed a book called “The Ten Thousand Doors of January” with my...
A Review of “The Ten Thousand Doors of January”
This book was written by Alix E. Harrow who is a good writer, but I thought there was somethings missing from her book “The Ten Thousand Doors of January”. First of all, my wife bought the book on Kindle, and...
Talking Past Each Other? Good!
Gary, July 8, 2021 I probably engage in more communications online than I do in person. Talking past each other is a common phenomenon even in (or more likely even more than) face to face situations. It consists of me...
Lew Archer and (the) Hooks
Halfway home, just above Emerald Bay, I overtook the worst driver in the world. Ross MacDonald / Gone Girl   I’ve always considered Ross MacDonald, known for his series of Lew Archer detective novels, a great writer with a unique,...

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