The Greatest Unknown Home Run Hitters
Scott McClain ? Steve Bilko? Nah- these two are Ruth and Aaron in name recognition compared to the few members of the “400 Club”- minor league sluggers who hit 400 or more home runs.
The all-time leader is Hector Espino, who hit 484 home runs in the Mexican League from 1960 until 1984. He’s considered the greatest player in Mexican League history.He was offered MLB contracts by the St. Louis Cardinals, Mets, and Padres- rejecting all. One rumor was that he wanted a piece of the franchise in St. Louis.He did play briefly for their AAA club and was invited to spring training. He never showed.
In 1988 he was inducted into the Mexican League HOF. He died in 1997 at the age of 58 of a heart attack.
Buzz Arlett is the all-time minor league home run king in the United States, with 432. Buzz played one season in the bigs with Philadelphia in 1931 and hit very well- .313 BA and 18 HRs, 4th in the NL. But he was overweight and supposedly a very poor fielder- it would be his only MLB season.Buzz was inducted into the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame in 1945 . He died of a heart attack in Minneapolis in 1964.
Andres Mora (444), Nick Cullop (420) and Merv Connors (400) are the other members of the 400-homer club.
But maybe the man who personifies the great minor league sluggers and baseball as it was in much of the country “back in the day” was Mighty Joe Bauman ( “Mighty” is my designation). Joe set the single season professional home run record with 72 for Roswell in the Class C Longhorn League in 1954. He held that record until Bonds broke it- Joe hit 337 minor league home runs- many of them while suiting up in a different uniform for his “real Job” – running his gas station…
The Joe Bauman Home Run Award is given to the minor leaguer who who hit the most regular season home runs that year. It was begun in 2002, winners have included Ryan Howard, Brandon Wood, Dallas McPherson, and Bryan LaHair…
Joe continued running his gas station after he retired. Joe passed away in 2005 at the age of 83. Some say the aliens who had landed in Roswell and infiltrated the townsfolk had taken a liking to Mighty Joe and returned to bring him home to New Andromeda..where the children delight in the tales of his legendary blasts..
( Joe at 80 looked like he could still clear a fence or two)
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Excellent!
This is great stuff, not to be found anywhere else. I eat this up. Fascinating. Thank you. (By the way, Ebbets Field — if I have the name right — sells various historical and minor league and Negro Leagues clothing items, reproductions. Years ago, I bought a t-shirt for my teenaged son commemorating the Roswell team. It was a bit of a contrivance, but the shirt was cool, playing off Area 51 lore, and he loved it.)
I hope to send a link describing my Syracuse to Cooperstown to Charlotte trip thus far.
I caught pitch-by-pitch online via ESPN of last night’s last two batters. Torturus Redux Magnificat.
Incidentally, the Charlotte Knights of North Carolina play in South Carolina. They’re out of town, but driving over there later to leave an autographed copy of my book for Dan Johnson, who is with the Knights now.
Oh. Gas was $2.99/gal in Virginia, near N.C.
I don’t notice headlines screaming about THAT price of gas. Must be Obama’s “fault.”
Giants as a team have 45 right now, with 90 games left. Loo months ago wondered about top 2 guys combining for 50—I’d say top 3 might not even do that. Posey has 9, Melk 6 Pablo and Pagan 5 Belt now with 4 along with Blanco, 3 for Nate, 2 for Hector.
As they showed during the homestand and in the late rally Friday, Sf can win without HRs by getting on base, playing small ball and getting pitching and defense. The A’s rallied the same way last night, tho their defense has let them down in this series.
Cespedes sure is interesting, but i’m gonna go look up his K pct., which seems astronomical.
PCl in later years has been known as a hitters league—maybe te fact that manny hit .300 but with little pop scared away other teams; looks like he is finally done. The A’s have done well there too, but their hitters don’t often take to well to mlb level ball. Giantw fans can suely relate—and whitey is hitting .214 for the griz.
To me it seems like there are unknown home run hitters in the big leagues. Where the hell did Jim Thome get 609 homers? I never hear his name. When I started following baseball there were 4 members of the 500 HR club. Now it’s 25. Looking further down the all-time list, some of the names and totals are shocking to me. (Delgado, Konerko, A.Jones, Dunn) Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_career.shtml
Thome is a first ballot HOF, in my opinion
Konerko is too in my opinion.
Thome might make it 1st time, 200 HRs as a DH won’t help his cause, though. Konerko wouldn’t based on his numbers now.
Twin, good lead. Definitely not something I would come up with. And that’s a good thing—ALL of The Stable Boys have hit on all cylinders with their posts. They’ve been both inviting (for others to share) and thought provoking (which, if done right, makes the blog as good as it can be).
Winning the first 2 of this series helped too 🙂
I agree, Flav. Twin’s lead is definitely a welcome twist. I was growing weary of hearing about all the happy families and wondrous childhoods around here. Weren’t any of you guys ever beaten, ridiculed or molested?
classic. You sure you don’t want to take a stab at being a good Stable Boy? I know you’re probably the only one of us who’s actually been a real one. 🙂
And don’t look now (ok, I guess you can take a peek) but Denny is DESTROYING everyone in the Flap Fantasy Baseball league. Utter destruction. He’s got the 2nd place chump by 20 pts.
And yes, this is equivalent to someone bringing up a no hitter while it’s in progress.
GENDER?grin
Wait till the Giants killer road trip hits…This place will read like Sandusky’s court transcript.
There hasn’t been a dud yet…Great job by all!
Thanks Dloo for he homer chart . I love that kinda list. What stands out a little is the 16 next to Mcguire vs. the 22, 20, 19 on all the years played by the other guys near the top.
Gmen caught a huge break on the ground rule double in the 9th, and nary a mention in any of the stories about the game. Whew!!!
Your welcome, Sportdude. Always good to see you here…
Excellent topic twin. Totally unique. Can you imagine hitting that many bombs and not being in the majors? Must be a lot of variables
After you hit the first 400, that should give you a clue to pursue another gig.
Being a professional baseball player in the first half of the 20th century was different from now- it was a good life for men like Bauman- he was a big man in the towns he played in. According to his NY Times obit, he was the biggest attraction in Roswell since that alien landing. I’ve also read that fans threw dollar bills through the fence with every home run- and he got a ham for every HR. He settled in Roswell and ran his station and a beer distributorship until his death. Sounds like a good life. And lotsa pork…
He was still living when Bonds broke his single season professiomal HR record, BTW. He was pretty blase about. Said he watched on TV, and thought “Well, there goes my record”…
I never thought of it then and I never heard that the team ever made any arrangements for Mighty Joe to be honored and meet Barry for the event, seems like that would have been a cool thing for the to do..
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/sports/baseball/22Bauman.html
What does Sandoval get, a side of beef?
I heard it on the radio yesterday and now see it on Loo’s list: A-Rod is only 20 away from passing Mays. It’ll be a dark day when that happens.
OK, so why is it that guys who can light up the minors with the long ball fail so miserably at mlb level? Funny of Pawlie to mention Dan Johnson, who is exactly the type of guy I’m thinking of—he of some memorable and historic bombs alongside a mendoza line BA, but again back down in the minors trying to show enough for another comeback with a contender.
Why is it that a guy like Bowker can hammer minor league stuff (and apparently Pill is on a tear since going back down) and is completely over matched at the next level and gets run out of baseball? Quality and quantity of different pitches? One overarching flaw in the swing that can’t be fixed? Inability to recognize and adjust to breaking balls? Horrible splits vs. one side of the mound?
I’d guess that the overwhelming majority of the time it’s the breaking ball. If minor league pitchers could consistently throw the kind of breaking stuff that bedevils the Bowkers, they wouldn’t be minor leaguers very long.
I guess it’s kinda like a kid who can dominate on his own block or in Little League, but can’t make his high school team…
DJLoo MUST become one of the Unstable Boys.
A little chronicle of my trip thus far, if interested: http://thelaughorist.blogspot.com/2012/06/running-on-empty-ish.html
Nice journal read 🙂
Loo specializes in the one-liner. Maybe a long post is intimidating for him.
Twin, that was a great post.
Players that lived in obscurity in the B-D leagues back in the 40’s and 50’s wearing the hand-me-down uniforms of major players; never to make it in the Bigs; are, in my eyes, the true players of this great sport.
I wanted to share something that all you Bay Area folks may recall.
It to me shows the pride and love that the locals had for this team; and without the success that became of
it, we probably would not be enjoying these moments.
THE PETITION
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81111754@N02/7433126654/
My birthday man Dick Stuart was probably one of the few who hit a bunch in the minors and the bigs- 221 in minor league ball and 228 in the majors.
Loo: if it helps in demystifying some of those childhood memories, I recount the story of Stuart coming to my birthday party with great fondness now- at the time it became the worst day of my life. Hero worship from afar
turned into near fear of the man in person. After the most awkward 30 minutes imaginable, Stuart left, Dad was like WTF!!!?? I retired to my room, cake-less..
Thank you, Clarice…
I’m sorry, I don’t get the Silence of the Lambs reference, if that’s what it was.
Lechter says it 3:15 in…
I think you needed more ice cream as a child, Loo.
And here ya go-9 members of the “Not Quite 400 Club”
Blanco RF, Theriot 2B, Cabrera LF, Posey C, Pagan CF, Sandoval 3B, Belt 1B, Sanchez DH, Crawford SS, (Cain P
Flav, thanks for putting the Kibosh (by Discreet Cat out of Kaskazi) on my Pussies. There’s a reason why I haven’t said a goddamn word about my position in the standings — I didn’t want to Jinx (by Tale of the Cat out of La Alleged) ’em! You screwed me now. Thanks for giving it to my Pussies up the ass. 😀
TF, sterling narrative this morning. I had never heard of Hector, Buzz or Joe Bauman before this morning.
Thanks for the story.
If there was one little tidbit that still has me chuckling- it was the rumor that Espino turned down the Cards because he wanted a piece of the franchise.
Nice lead Twin. I’d heard about Hector before, but didn’t realize his homers came in the Mexican League. Its funny how now so many minor league teams have shiny new stadiums and it seems very hip to go to minor league games now. After we moved to Woodland when I was a kid, we used to go to Sacramento Solons games at Hughes Stadium. Gormon Thomas and Sixto Lezcano played on those teams, but my guys were Bill McNulty and Tommie Reynolds. Did a little research this am and Reynolds put in some time in the bigs and hit 12 homers. In the 90’s he was on the A’s coaching staff. McNulty got less time and never did homer in the bigs. Hughes was a launching pad and had an odd configuration for baseball and some of the homeruns left the stadium completely. I remember we’d leave early sometimes and I’d scour the ground in the parking lot as we walked to the car hoping to find a home run ball. Never found one.
Sad but true: Sixto Lezcano (in town with the Brewers) dry-humped my girlfriend on the dance floor of a Manhattan disco in 1979 while I was in the bathroom…
That IS Sad but True. Cue the Metallica please….
that’s a fantastic story if it is true.
Why or how would I possibly make that up? I was just glad it wasn’t a Dodger…
…just did some internet searching and saw a couple of unoffiicial lists of guys who had at least 200 minor league homers. I was very pleased to see Bill McNulty was on the list as well as the legendary JR Phillips!! No sign of Randy Elliott (would probably have to search for highest Cactus League averages of all-time to find him!)
Randy had only 78. Other Giant farmhands of note:
Todd Linden 145
BowWow ( he’s now in Japan) 106
Lance Niekro 49 (pitching didn’t work out for him either)
Ort-Rod 70
Cody Ransom 212 ( I had no idea he has that many)
The legendary my main man ( and Snarkk’s) Crash McClain 310 ( plus missing numbers from years 2001 thru 2004 in Japan..
Wiki has McClain at 379 careers, including Japan. Don’t know how accurate that is. Whatever the number is, it’s a lot of dingers. He’s 40 now, don’t know where he is. Probably coaching? Good dude, hope he sticks in baseball in some capacity…
wow glad we missed all but the end of that version of the anthem…I hate when singers try and make it into an 8 minute song. The words “home of the brave” do not have 4 syllables each.
Buster!!! I’m sure glad the skipper’s giving him tomorrow off vs the Dodgers.
We don’t need his stinkin’ bat.
ha ha…twin how prophetic, your 10:06 re if minor leaguers could consistently throw good breaking balls….
Pablo just swung and missed on 3 extremely hittable balls. Worry time.
Nice job, Oracle. Always good to hear stories of the minor leagues. Appropos, too, as the Gyros have hit a few ‘taters the last few games, including Buster already today. Minor leagues and the stories from them are a big combined separator of baseball from the other sports, and a great source of legend and the written word that the others don’t have. NCAA football is the NFL’s minors, but stands on its own feet. NBA has “D” league. I suppose there are some stories there, but that’s too recent, and not very many teams like the ubiquitous nature of baseball minors. The great thing about minor league ball is that its all over the US at various levels — so it’s reachable by and affordable to the masses. Maybe if more minor league teams were in inner cities, that would help popularize the game there. But, I suppose the economics don’t pencil out…
My minors experience was going to a few to more than a few games every summer to see the Fresno Giants back in the mid-late ’60s to about ’70. Ol’ John Euless ballpark that got condemned apparently in ’88 and torn down. Baseballreference.com is cool, I got to look at those old rosters, and the names bring back some vague memories of guys I saw that went onto the majors, for at least a look to being stars. Don Carithers, Bobby Bonds, Garry Maddox, Garry Matthews, Al Gallagher, Chris Arnold, Ron Bryant, Dave Rader, Bernie Williams, Jim Willoughby, Gary Ryerson, Jake Brown, George Foster, Steve Stone, Ed Goodson, Randy Moffitt, Mike Phillips, Elias Sosa, and so on. I remember Bonds didn’t stay long, you could tell he was on the move up. I remember Maddox the most, he moved like some kind of viscous liquid in the OF — super cool, super fast, just so smooth, even in A ball, and he had the big ‘fro going then. If you look at the rosters, you can tell in those days that a guy that eventually made the Show still might stay in A ball for a good long time, 2 full seasons or maybe more. There used to be an old dude roving the stands whose job it was to recover the baseballs if you caught a foul — exchanged for a free ticket to a future game, or coupon for a free watered-down Coke with plastic wrap over the top of the cup, or some such. If it were late in the game, you might leave with the ball instead of giving it up to the old coot. Everybody (the kids, anyway) hated his ass… 😉
Youkilis goes from RSox to WSox, now confirmed…
At one time there were far more minor leagues than there are now. And minor league baseball teams and the players were huge in the hinterlands- much as High School football in many parts of the country. I don’t know how many folks today have any idea how big it was, especially after WWII..
Well, that worked out for the best . . .
lucky. But I don’t think that was an easy call. We can see chalk fly up on our HD tv’s but the ump is a lot farther away.
Chalk? What chalk? Just like my 4/5 shot, that chalk blew up in the air. We caught a break.
I don’t think they use chalk anymore. I think its paint…
A paint-eating weasel just doesn’t sound the same.
That’s funny, DMD…
Now the A’s announcers are gonna harp on this the rest of the game. Thank god this is the last time I’ll have to listen to Ray Fosse.
Which reminds me….I can’t stand those patterns they put in the grass. I think they do it almost everywhere. What are they mowed in or something? WHY??? The grass looks so much better the normal way…
That’s why there should be replay- if it’s going to be shown to millions of viewers, players, and fans.. they should be reviewing it to get it right.
It’s a whole other debate, but my first question would be, what if the batter didn’t run (based on the ump’s call) and the replay reversed it? Then there would be more arguments about how many bases to award the batter and the base runners…
that’s one of the main reasons it hasn’t happened yet. That, and doing so wouldn’t put any dough into Bud’s buddies pockets and that’s about 90% of the reason Bud ever makes a move…….
Just a quick point on how far Sandoval has fallen. Taken out in a one run game, in 6th? Surely will miss an at at bat. WTF? I’m not watching, but I’m guessing its cause he’s fat!
He’s swinging and missing at easy balls to hit as well as difficult ones to hit. I’m guess Bochy just felt like it’s not worth it to keep him in the game for a single at bat when he could bring Arias in for better defense and, probably, a better at bat.
so i’m looking at the 2-1 score, two guys on, the two outs, our best hitter at the plate and i’m thinking that this is a big at-bat for the g’s. Maybe it’s just me but it seems that melky hasn’t been doing much lately with runners in scoring position and especially the key two out hit and this would be a great time to be rid of that impression. one pitch later, that impression is reinforced. bummer.
He hasn’t been doing much of anything with runners on or off. He’s 1 for his last 17. And he’s still hitting .351.
tells you how good he was hitting before! couldn’t keep it up forever though. will be nice to see him warm up again.
Flav..I’m not there but I trust your analysis. That means our best (or 2nd best) hitter is out cause he suck’s on D, is fat, and now can’t hit too. To echo ewisco..Bummer
Well, Melky is in pretty good shape and he’s 1 for his last 17 so we have multiple problems. At least Buster is hitting.
That was a nasty Unca Charlie by Casilla right there.
Is Romo still on the team? 3 days in a row for Casilla, and not effective in any..
Unfuckingbelievable.
FUCK!!!
click.
Reminds me of the old one: What’s got a one-inch dick and hangs down? A bat. What’s got a nine-inch dick and hangs up? [click]
trade him
So much for our closer.
FuuuuccckkkIng cocksucker
IH- you’ve been consistently foul-mouthed all week-end. We’re trying to avoid that with the “New Flap”. Thanks for understanding.
.182 0 11 for the year. Double Fuck!
An appropriate finish for Casilla this weekend.
Fucking disaster, what a downer.
Unreal. Dude doesn’t swing once the entire at bat and then he hits a bomb.
I think if Casilla never pitched in Oakland again he’d be cool with that. Way to early to get off him, he’s been $$$ for us this year……
Casilla is on one serious E-Ticket pole smoking ride. We’re talkin’ The Matterhorn, Submarine Voyage and Pirates of the Caribbean all wrapped into one.
He had 2 bad games in a row, it’s hardly a reason to start freaking out on him. He’s like 2nd in the NL in saves (I think) and that’s after missing the first couple weeks of the season
I’d say his ASG chances took a hit this weekend..
Everybody take a deep breath…OK, exhale. The guy was 20 of 22. He had a rough weekend. Unless he indicates a loss of confidence or something that Bochy sees as problematic- he’s the closer. Or should be still, IMO. He’s on a choke collar, though.
I didn’t see Flavor’s last post. I agree.
I’m not suggesting Casilla be removed from the closer’s role. Far from it. It’s just a tough pill to swallow.
With Zito going tomorrow it’s like two losses today.
I’m suspending any “give a darn” I ever had on who wins the ERA suckathon and just hoping the Zitster can be decent tomorrow.
I’m not that upset about this loss. The one time he would have been right, Denny didn’t say it (unless I missed it):
They didn’t deserve to win. Now go get the Bums..
No. I didn’t say it today, but maybe I should have before the 9th inning started and jinxed the A’s. I’m a bigger cooler than Bernie Lootz. Speaking of good movies, I got a couple of Natalie Wood/Tony Curtis flicks from TCM last night on the DVR. “Sex and the Single Girl” and “Kings Go Forth.” And on top of that I have a little Natalie/Warren Beatty action in “Splendor in the Grass.” I love me some Natalie. Did you know that Natalie means Christmas Day? Speaking of which, only 183 days to go. Did you buy my present yet?
Flav, when did you pick up Trevor Bauer in the Flap league?
By the by Twin, almost forgot to mention your excellent opening monologue post. Good job! Everyone has done a great job!
probably 6 weeks ago. As you’ll recall, I have been touting him since I watched him strike out about 370 Cardinal in a game at Sunken Diamond last year…..
You may be fooling the rest of the Flap league hanging around 10th to last place, but I am onto your “Robert James “Bobby” Fischer put ’em to sleep” strategy. 🙂
Hey, I’m not giving up, I’m “re-tooling”. And I actually am starting to like my team. I will never do a flap league again that’s auto/draft. It fucked several teams. I was just tired of doing drafts, I’d done 4 and they take a lot of time. Next year we do a live draft, probably in mid march.
I also am not too bummed about this loss. Santiago has been great all things considered and we easily could have been swept including an all-time kick in the nuts loss (Ryan Spilborghs anyone??) yesterday that was barely averted.
As for the ERA suck-a-thon, I’ll try to let it go, but it helps me cope when Zito gets bombed, so I can’t promise not to go there again. Here’s hoping there will be no need.
If I don’t get 100 posts besides my own (only 80 more to go, in other words), I’m taking the Ledger.
As some of you guys know, I watch a lot of Yankee games– probably as many as the Giants. It’s fascinating to watch Chris Stewart catch Sabathia every game. This guy could be Eli Whiteside in the minors right now. And yet, he’s playing on the biggest stage in bAseball on a regular basis. His career has almost eclipsed Whitey in terms of improbability..,,
Alex White is doing his part in the new Rockies 4 pitcher, limit them to 75 pitches strategy. Umm . . . sort of.
2.2 innings, 78 pitches, 4 earned runs.
I’ve only half way been paying attention to that idiocy, but hasn’t that been failing like every single gm?
Yes. If you put a silver saddle on a jack ass, it’s still a jack ass. 🙂
That knuckle ball doesn’t seem like it’s doing much tonight
Ouch, Stewart just went infield fly rule. Do they know how good of a bunter he is? Probably not in Girardi’s tool box
Gender?grin
I heard Arizona is calling up Bauer to start Thursday. Don’t look now, but the Snakes are starting to rattle in the desert. Their pitching is heating up like a cheap Yuma apt. w/o AC. Miley pitched another gem today and is headed to the ASG. And Upton is catching fire as well. 8 hits and 9 RBI in his last 4 games. The preseason favorites to win the West are making some noise…
That’s interesting, because most of the pundits and magazines picked the Giants to win the NL West.
They are playing better, no doubt. Especially Upton and Goldy. Putz is in a funk but I think Hernandez is better anyway, so maybe they go with him. Bauer may or may not be ready but he’ll be in my starting LU regardless. He’s a K machine……..
dmd, “heating up like a cheap Yuma apt.” freaking classic.
Flav, could you please send me an editor invite. I wanna make sure I’m good to go when my turn comes up.
Thanks.
yes, I’ll do it right now> i sent you one before but it must have gone into your spam filter. The Dunkirk-revenge one, right?
I got it, but the invite was to “follow,” I still can’t find the “New Post” icon atop the page. Am I missin’ sumthin’?
that was my bad, I just sent you an *editor* invite.
I don’t believe in “Luck,” except that “luck is where preparation meets opportunity.” Nevertheless, I am hoping the Flav hex put on “pussy” gives her VD . . . So far, so good – only 14.5 points back.
Pffffft! So much for frickin’ luck . . . My man Dickey just got “dicked.”
I was surprised the 3rd base coach held up Texeira. Looked like he was going to beat the throw. And with Stew and the pitcher up next…..
—–
Chi is in for a great concert tonight. The Avett Brothers put on a terrific show last night.
It’s looking good for me to be going to the SF/LA game on Wednesday. Just a couple of more details to work out….
Nice. Looks like you’re up on the 28th, that could be a sweet *Flapper Game Re-Cap*.
Yeah, I’m up for a post on the 29th, so that seems a natural topic. Plus, it’s Timmy pitching, so we’re all hoping for him to build on the progress from his last start. Not all regular season games are created equal, and this seems like a big one.
29th? The schedule in the widget to the right says the 28th. Anyway, I hope you give us a long re-cap of that game, you’re probably the only Flapper going to the game.
Oops, you’re right. I’m up for the 28th! (grin)
Yeah, DMD is completely wrong-and knows it- about the preseason favorites to win the West- it was the Giants.
Blade– I wanted Dickey to keep it going, I have been waiting 20+ years for the *Oral Hershy* injustice to get fixed. And it’s just a hazy memory, but as I recall, the Giants scored an earned run during Orel’s streak, in the late 30’s maybe? But it was actually ruled an unearned run. Anyone remember more details then that? I did some light googling on it but came up empty. Anyway, too bad Dickey didn’t keep it going………
*Dickey . . . There is something about going against the Yankees that throws everyone off. I think if Team X is in there vs. the Yanks, he continues his streak. Him going against the Yankees even discombobulated me this morning when I was setting my line-up. I thought once, twice, three times about sitting him . . . My pitching staff was crap to start the season and it took me this long to make it half way decent. Shit, he just threw his first wild pitch this year. Not his night.
I think Denny AWARDED it to them, after the Dodgers had their big start, it was then awarded to the Dodgers.
About that bottom of the 9th today.
Bummer….
See? Now THAT is a POTD post waiting to happen. Of course, it’s unlikely too happen, but I would support it. 🙂
It’s CLiff Lee’s 12th start of the year and he’s still winless on the year. That is astounding. This is the same guy who pitched 10 innings of shut out ball against us back on April 18th. You have to wonder if that took a little out of him………
As for minor league homers….one in particular has a special memory. I have a friend who’s a Giants fan, who pays zero attention to the minor leagues, and he went with me to a SJ Giants game in ’09, and I told him a lot about Posey, and really built Posey up, and lo and behold, later in the game, Posey hit an HR to straightaway centerfield. To this day, that friend treats it like a “called shot” and gives me major credit, especially since the Giants won the Series the next year with Posey being part of that great ’10 season.
Just food for thought…I love Casilla. Stats wise likely better than Wilson to this point. Love Bochy. His relaxed demeanor is almost always a plus. Got to see him behind the scenes last year courtesy of Showtime. That said..Anyone else think it was a mistake to not pitch Romo? My brother is a diehard A’s fan, and asked me when Casilla came out why isn’t Romo in the game? Fair question or no?
“Food for thought.” That’s one of my favorite racing form comments on their selection page. My Mom loved to bet horses that were food related. One of her all-time favorites was the BC Classic winner, Alphabet Soup. She loved that horse. And if a food horse had “food for thought” in its comment line, it was back up the truck time.
I believe Loo said he likes “In fine fettle.” That’s an oldie but a goodie. “Chance at a price” was always a sucker bet.
what about when you read “since Hector was a pup..”—what does that portend? lol
I actually thought getting Lopez up was a little bit of a questionable call. He started throwing after the FIRST hitter got a hit. If any of you have the game recorded go back and look at Casilla’s reaction. He looked over, looked down, and yelled something.
Casilla was filthy on his 2 strikeouts and on the strikes that Norris was frozen on. But that challenge fastball got beat. That’s the way it goes.
Anyway, I do NOT think Romo should have been brought in and I don’t like that Bochy warmed up Lopez one batter into the inning. Talk about sending a *no support* message………
What troubles me about Romo closing is that I seem to recall Flavor saying that Romo himself had expressed doubt about having the mental make-up for it. I’m sure Craig will correct me if I’m wrong about that. Additionaly, I completely support throwing Casilla back out there after a night like last night. That’s always been a Bochy belief. Romo was warming up, I think if he’d walked Norriss, Sergio would have come in because of his control, seeing as the bases would have been loaded.
I did say that and got called on it by some emailers. I looked it up on google sideways and frontways and couldn’t find the article that I thought I read.
Romo is not physically prepared for that type of load. That’s an opinion but it’s at least something I can support with details about his health……..
Romo can’t close. With that slider, his elbow would be hamburger by August…
BF, i remember reading/hearing that too. right from Romo’s mouth. He’s not keen on closing.
I didn’t disagree with you, I just wasn’t sure it was you who said it.
Did you guys notice that game time on July 4th is 8:05 AM (west coast). Is that some kind of record?.
No, I don’t think so. We had a 9:05am game last month. I’m assuming July 4th games often have weird start times.