Welcome back to the blog after the commissioner took his All-Star Break. Let's take a look at all the action in the Longball League.
Roster Moves
7/22/2013
The Invisible Hands picked Y. Darvish- TEX back up after an injury and dropped J. Verlander- DET.
7/23/2013
The Tax Dodgers picked Y. Darvish- TEX back up after injury and dropped J. Verlander- DET.
The San Pedro Sea Monkeys dropped Jason Grilli-PIT due to injury and picked up C. Kimbrel-ATL
Who's Hot/Who's Not
Hitters
Hot: Cleveland's Michael Born had two HR, 10 RBI week.
Not: Albert Pujols, like the Angels, is not hot. His foot injury means that we'll see Albert again in 2014..
Pitchers
Hot: The Marlins' Jose Fernandez won both his starts this week while fanning 21 batters along the way.
Not: Jason Hammel went 0-2 for Baltimore while walking 9 batters in those games. I guess that's why is WHIP is 2.21 for the week.
This Week's Three Trivial Things
1. This is the first time since 1965 that no former living player will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Wow, that is sad.
2. Manny Machado of the Orioles is on pace for over 220 hits this season. There are only three other active major leaguers to record 220+ hits in a season. They are Ichiro, Michael Young, and Juan Pierre.
3. Don Larsen could have been Bill Bevens. Huh? It's well known that Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history, but the first no-hitter cold have been thrown by the Yankees Bill Bevens in 1947. With two out in the ninth, Brooklyn's Cookie Lavagetto doubled off Bevens that not only broke up the no-hitter, but won the game for the Dodgers. Bevens went from the top to the bottom in one pitch.
Cool Baseball Card set of the Week: 1969 Topps
The 1969 topps set is the last set of the 1960s and it completes an awesome decade of card production for Topps. All the sets from 1960-69 are great. The 1969 set features the awesome quirkiness and great players that make the set a collectors' favorite. As far as rookies go, the top rookie in the set is Reggie Jackson. Here's how he looks on card #260
The there's the sophomore class in the majors withe second cards of Nolan Ryan #533 and Johnny Bench #95.
Then there's the final card of Mickey Mantle #500.
Funny how you can chart the grand passage of time through baseball cards. Oh, and the quirkiness of this set comes into play with this last Mantle card. There were many errors and variations in this set. The major one is that a handful of the cards hand name color variations. Most of the Mantle cards have The Mick's last name printed in Yellow. A scant number have his last name printed in white. Ungraded the regular "Yellow Letter" Mantle can go for around 300 dollars. The "White Letter" version usually goes for around 2,000 dollars. Graded ones in a an 8 or 9 have gone for astronomical cash.
Until next week folks remember that if Nelson Cruz gets nailed for PEDs, Manny Ramirez may be called up by the Rangers.
-The Commissioner
