The Retro Games of the Day and Ed Halicki Ruled……..
I’m posting this because I’ve got nothing for tomorrow except Niner sh!t and many of the regs aren’t down with that. And don’t take this post the wrong way, I’m not mad or bent, I just don’t understand the Halicki Raggers……
So what if he’s coming up a lot in the RGOTD? Go check the games, he pitched every 4th day, not every 5th, and he was a freaking loss-stopper-extraordinaire……Plus he seemed to go 8 innings and/or complete game more often than the rest of many of his peers. The fact that I know that from a couple of weeks of casual baseball-reference.com research is fantastic. Plus he pitched a no-hitter in the first game I ever attended. He was also a long, lanky, memorable dude from the 70’s and WE all rule. His last name was rad, too…….
Here’s how I come up with RGOTD (In order of importance):
1) It’s got to be a home game
2) I look for streaks of wins, losses or broken streaks of wins or losses.
3) I check the LU’s. I’m trying to vary it with some LU’s that get everyone talkin’ and that’s easy to do since I just started this Winter Side Bar widget……..
4) I look at the pitching match ups or the pitching winners and losers. You see some pretty sweet and epic names there…..
5) I’m trying to tell a story.
In summary, and at risk of *over-responding* to the Halicki Hysteria, I will end today’s thread with this: you’re going to still see a fair number of Halicki pitched games, at least for the next week or three. I’ll pick out tomorrow’s RGOTD when I get up tomorrow. I realize and accept the pressure I am now under to go with a *Jim Barr* game. LQTM…..
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It’s May 25th, 1979. The Braves are in town and they suck. Matthews? Burroughs? Horner? Can you spell B-A-D-A-S-S? We won 6-4, The Ripper banged another one in the 8th off Phil Niekro who went the distance but took the loss. Shockingly, Ed Halicki did NOT pitch. Knepper did and he ran his record to an impressive 5-2. He would go 9-12 on the year…….
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Even Death Threat writes better than those hacks at the Bleacher Report…
well, like I said, fuck them, Contact ME and then tell me I might make zero dollars (potentially) and they take over the look, feel, control of the blog plus I have to work with Charlene-The Writing-Coach and write the way THEY want me to? Pass……..
I liked Halicki, A lot. Great fastball. Good slider. Imposing. No hitter. What’s not to like?
One of my fav Giants. Really, BF. Big Ed.
Gimme more Ed, can’t get enough. That’s the ticket.
I’m looking at the BB now — could be the tats, but even SHE’s making me think of Big Ed…
🙂
totally agree, Snarkk. The thing I’ll never get is that he was 55-66 lifetime. And yet every game I randomly pick out (and as I indicated above, the SP’s are not the priority) seem to have Halicki throwing a gem. Whatever, who couldn’t beat Randy Lerch? 🙂
And in regards to the BB, she is a big woman, yes? I’m kinda bummed on the BB these days since the best photo’s are either too small or too big or too copyrighted. Nice cans, though……..
flav, Niekro was the subject of some polka music hits, too. I think the group led by Frank Yankovic used to play stuff with his nickname “knucksie” in the title. Phil won I don’t know how many games (over 300 tho wasn’t it?), tho I don’t know if he and Joe won more games than the Perrys. Came off as an everyday kind of guy hero.
some of the Braves teams post Dale Murphy of the next decade were truly awful, as we used to watch on Ted Turner’s Superstation, whle forced to listen to Skip Caray whine about them. They were full of crummy pitching and mistake prone fielders; one of them lost 106 games, and not by accident.
OK I went and looked up almost 15 years of suckitude by Braves: 1975 to 1979, they never lost less in a season than 92, including one year of 101 losses. After a couple years .500 ball, followed that up with 6 year streak 1985-1990 of never losing less than 89 (once), including the epic year I mentioned of the 54-106. Oh, and I was wrong, the second stretch was during the years they did have Dale Murphy in CF.
Powder blue unis…..yeah they sucked!
WillieD–my bad. I took out that line about Cox in the main thread. I just assumed that since he was managing in ’79 that he managed the Braves continuously until he retired after the 2010 season and I did recall some bad Braves teams in the 80’s. But my assumption was incorrect. He managed them ’78 to ’81. He was dismissed mid way through the ’81 season. He was then re-hired in ’91 and proceeded to go on quite a successful run. The RGOTD offers us a dizzying array of educational moments…. 🙂
well, ’78 and ’79 they lost 93 and 94 with Cox at the helm, dead last in division back to back.
Like Dean smith said, he won an NCAA title and all of a sudden he’s a genius.
Who doesn’t love Jersey’s own Big Ed Halicki? I’m totally diggin’ it. Keep ’em coming, Flav!
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Ed had some pretty good years that weren’t rewarded with a positive W-L record. Matt Cain can probably relate to that. But when the guy was on, he was ON- 13 shutouts. I think Ed had some arm troubles in 1980, and had some clashes with the brass.. they waived him, he pitched a few games with the Angels, then it was over for him..Like most fans, i liked the big guy..
Awesome photo. As i recall we were somewhere along the left field line. Got any pictures of that??? 🙂
Good stuff. Love the photo. Brings back so many memories.
Don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but Flavor doesn’t have to look far for a Jim Barr game- in the first game of this doubleheader, Kingman hit a slam off Barr..
Off topic Flav, I don’t know if it’s been brought up before. But, any plans on another countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting?
No plans on that widget making return. I’ve got my hands full with the BBOTD and the RGOTD
Gotcha.
A lot of games I would be sitting under the giant watch. Cheap seats!
I forgot about that watch– old school
So looks like Timmy wants an 8 year deal according to John Heyman. I say cash him out.
Timmeh is smart. Make me uber rich now like you did with that dullard Zito, or I’ll go year to year or max 2 years and be rich anyway (even if I get hurt) until FA kicks in after 2013 — and then if my roll of the dice worked out, I’ll auction myself to an organization that believes in getting me some runs…
You guys want an outfielder? I got one for ya. Manny Ramirez is making a comeback. He’s filing for reinstatement from the MLB voluntary retired list.
I can hear Renel Brooks-Moon now…batting fourth, and playing left field. No. 99, Manny Raaaaaaamirez!!!
Sign Timmy for two years and deal with him again at FA time if he hasn’t lost another couple MPH on his fastball… Yeah, he’s dying to walk after two CYs and a WS win.
The loss of more velocity seems not unlikely. 2 years is just about right. I don’t see his WHIP dropping below 1.2 again, because w/o the 95+ heat, he’s going to have a pretty high BB ratio with that splitter he relies on. Don’t get me wrong — still very happy he’s on our side.
quiet day. ‘9ers came through though.
Alex is no Ed Halicki!
Reyes to Marlins — 6 years for $106 million. That’s on top of Heath Bell 3 years for total $27M. Where the hell are they getting this money– while the Giants are packing in 3.3 million and squeezing lemons? Revenue sharing dough must be great, cuz it sure hasn’t been banked from 1500 customers at midweek night games…