Author: Bill Grimes

I'm from Chicago. I worked in broadcast journalism for much of the 1970's and 80's. In 1990 I became a litigation consultant, retiring in 2017. Around 2005 I recall flipping through the sports section of the newspaper coming across "On this day in baseball history Willie Mays hit his 600th home run." I enjoyed the one-liners, but I wanted more. I wanted a story. I took my news reporting skills and started researching and telling baseball stories, one for every day of the year. TodayinBaseball.com is the result.

AUGUST 14: Stealing home – twice!

[FROM THE TIB ARCHIVES]

AUGUST 14, 1958 | CLEVELAND, OHIO – How’s that for a sports name – Vic Power! Sounds like a Power Ranger. Power electrified the Cleveland Indians on this date in baseball history (1958). The 3rd baseman stole 3 bases in all of 1958, two of those were stolen on this date, and both were thefts of home! No American Leaguer had ever done that before, not even Ty Cobb. Even more amazing, Power’s second pilferage was a walk-off theft of home in the tenth! It gave the Indians a 10-9 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

He was born Victor Felipe Pellot in 1927 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. He was known mostly as a first baseman, winning seven Gold Gloves, but played every position on the field except pitcher and catcher during his 12-year career. Power was a six-time all-star, with some pop in his bat. He reached double digits in home runs nine times.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
More Vic Power stats
August 14, 1958 box score/details 

FEB 18: Annual guessing game

FEBRUARY 18, 2017 | FLORIDA & ARIZONA – Prediction time for fans and prognosticators as spring training begins for 2017. Baseball Prospectus (BP) has among the most knowledgeable baseball people. BP’s crunching of the numbers leads their experts to believe the following teams are most likely to win their respective divisions in 2017.

American League
East – Boston Red Sox
Central – Cleveland Indians
West – Houston Astros

National League
East – New York Mets
Central – Chicago Cubs
West – Los Angeles Dodgers

It’ll be fun to see what happens. But how well have Baseball Prospectus’ predictions fared? Let’s look back. Here are BP’s 1998 predictions, and whether they were correct or not:

American League
New York Yankees – CORRECT
Cleveland Indians – CORRECT
Seattle Mariners – WRONG (Texas)

National League
East – Atlanta Braves – CORRECT
Central – Houston Astros – CORRECT
West – LA Dodgers – WRONG (San Diego)

Here’s a look at the favored teams from 1999 and how then fared.

American League
East – New York Yankees – CORRECT
Central – Cleveland Indians – CORRECT
West – Texas Rangers – CORRECT

National League
East – Atlanta Braves – CORRECT
Central – Houston Astros – CORRECT
West – LA Dodgers – WRONG (Diamondbacks)

Overall, Baseball Prospectus did very well.

August 13: Rain, rules beat Yankees

AUGUST 13, 1978 | BALTIMORE, MARYLAND • Was the grounds-crew as swift as it could have been? Earl Weaver wouldn’t try to stall for rain would he? Either way, the New York Yankees were not pleased with the outcome of a game against the Baltimore Orioles on this date in baseball in 1978.

The O’s were leading the Yankees 3-0 after six innings. The Yankees scored five in the top of the seventh to take a 5-3 lead. The Orioles came to bat, and it started raining. The rain got heavier. Some think Orioles Manager Earl Weaver, one of the real characters of America’s pastime, saw the handwriting on the wall – or the raining falling on the ground – and stalled so the Orioles would not finish their time at bat. If the home team does not complete an inning because of rain, the score reverts back to the previous inning.

Some also think the Baltimore Memorial Stadium grounds crew was less than swift in getting the field covered. Needless to say, the game was called after 36 minutes. The umpires said the field was in bad shape because of so many rain delays, this only made it unplayable.

Rule 4.12 has since been changed (largely because of that game) so that the game is suspended should the visiting team take the lead when play stops because of rain before the home team has had a chance to complete the inning. The game is resumed from that point at a future date. Here’s the rule:

4.12 SUSPENDED GAMES.
(a) A game shall become a suspended game that must be completed at a future date if the game is terminated for any of the following reasons:
(5) Weather, if a regulation game is called while an inning is in progress and before the inning is completed, and the visiting team has scored one or more runs to take the lead, and the home team has not retaken the lead;

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Game stats https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL197808130.shtml
United Press International (UPI), Baltimore, Maryland, August 14, 1978
Official Rules http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/foreword.jsp

Oct 20: Back from the brink

OCTOBER 20, 2004 | THE BRONX, NEW YORK | By defeating the New York Yankees 10-3 on this date in 2004, the Boston Red Sox became the first MLB team to win a best of seven playoff series after losing the first three games. Every game after the third was an elimination game for the Red Sox, and games four and five were not for the faint of heart.

It was the bottom of the ninth in game 4. The Red Sox were three outs from going home, down 4-3. Kevin Millar walked to lead off. Brian Roberts ran for Millar and proceeded to steal second. Roberts scored the tying run on a base hit by 3rd baseman Bill Mueller. The Red Sox were unable to bring the winning run around, so extra innings it went.

No one scored in the 10th or 11th. The Yankees went down in the 12th without scoring, but the Red Sox wasted little time putting the game away. Manny Ramirez singled to left and David Ortiz followed with a walk-off home run.

The Red Sox trailed late in game 5 too. They tied the Yankees in the bottom of the eighth. Again, it went into extra innings, and again, David Ortiz drove in the winning run with a walk-off single in the 14th.

The Red Sox had to win the next two in Yankee Stadium, which they did, 4-2 and 10-3. The next stop – the World Series. The Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four games to win their first World Series since 1918.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Game 4 box score/play-by-play
Game 5 box score/play-by-play
MLB postseason

AUG 12: Baseball in Berlin

AUGUST 12, 1936 | BERLIN, GERMANY – The largest crowd ever to watch a baseball game, up to that point, saw a “demonstration” game at the summer Olympics in Berlin on this date in 1936. In excess of 90,000 spectators saw two teams of amateurs both from the U.S., play a 7-inning contest. The final score was 6-5.

German fans had to be helped along with the nuances of the game. According to Baseball in the Olympics by Pete Cava, not until the announcer told the crowd that a batter making it all the way around the bases for an inside-the-park home run was a good thing for the batter did they cheer.

The Berlin attendance record stood until 93,103 fans showed up for an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees in honor of former Dodger catcher Roy Campanella at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1959. The Dodgers, new to Los Angeles, made the Coliseum home for a few seasons waiting for Dodger Stadium to be built.

Speaking of international baseball, did you know more than 100 countries belong to the International Baseball Federation? For example, Argentina has 355 teams/3,500 players. Australia has 5,000 teams/57,000 players. Canada has 6,621 teams/119,178 players. Czech Republic has 60 teams/2,668 players.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
1936 Olympics
Baseball attendance records
Los Angeles Coliseum attendance records
Baseball in the Olympics, by Pete Cava, 1991