Yesterday, the NY Mets turned in a wrong batting order card to the umpires and batted out of turn leading to a player who actually hit a double in his “at-bat” being called out and sent to the dugout for batting out of order. The MLB rules governing this sort of thing are explicit and clear; there was no misinterpretation by the umpires here. I coached a Little League team for ONE season back when Dante’s Inferno was on the “New Releases List”. Even then, I knew not to screw up that aspect of the game. Here is a link to the CBSSports.com report on this matter.
As noted in that report, the Mets had started the season at a torrid 12-2 but have fallen on hard times since then. After yesterday’s loss – the game involving the batting out of order incident – the Mets’ record stands at 18-16 which is a whole lot worse than 12-2. The Mets have also lost Jacob deGrom to the IR list and have traded Matt Harvey after he refused a team decision to send him to the minor leagues. Even for a team in NYC, the Mets have packed a season’s worth of drama into a single 5 week stretch of the season.
In other MLB news, Ichiro has left the active roster for the Mariners – presumably ending his MLB career as a player – and has taken up a job in the Mariners’ front office. Ichiro is 44 years old and it appears as if Father Time has called him into a position off the field of play.
I have said several times in the past that Ichiro was one of the players in MLB that I would want to pay to see “live-and-in-person” when he came to my town to perform. Here are a couple of his accomplishments:
- He amassed more than 3000 base hits in his MLB career and that feat is magnified because Ichiro did not play in MLB until age 27.
- He broke a long-standing record in MLB when he collected 262 hits in a single season. Previously, the record was 256 hits by George Sisler.
In the last week, Albert Pujols collected his 3,000th hit – and a $3M bonus for achieving that milestone. In addition to being a member of the three-thousand-hit-club, here are some of Pujols’ other career achievements:
- He has hit 620 HRs in his career as of this morning.
- He has been on the All-Star team 10 times.
- He has been the MVP in 3 different seasons.
If you look at active players and ask who among them might be next to reach the 3000-hit club, the answer is Miguel Cabrera. Here are Cabrera’s stats:
- He is 35 years old as of today.
- He has collected 2666 hits as of today.
- Last year was the worst year of his 16-year MLB career when he only managed to get 117 hits.
- If he were to continue at that slow pace at the plate, he would need less than three more years to reach 3000 hits. It could happen in late 2019 if he returns to his earlier performance levels; barring major injury, it will happen sometime in the 2020 season.
- By the way, Cabrera is also likely to collect 500 HRs over his career. AS of this morning he has hit 465 HRs.
In basketball news, I want you to juxtapose these two headlines from columns on the Internet yesterday:
“Dwayne Casey voted Coach of the Year by peers”
And…
“Report: Raptors leaning toward head coaching change”
If that is not enough to cause you to shake your head in wonderment, consider that Brad Stevens did not get a single vote from among his peers in the NBA as the Coach of the Year. Seriously…
Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:
“The Metropolitan King County Council approved a ban on vaping and chewing tobacco in sports facilities — particularly the Mariners’ Safeco Field — effective May 19.
“In other words, Skoal’s out for the summer.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………