topper09er

Milwaukee native Lave Cross, a player I'd never even heard of until a week ago. He had some really good seasons for the Phillies right before the turn of the century. In 1894, he hit .387 with 210 hits and 132 ribbies. The next season, his average dropped 116 points to .271, but he still drove in over 100. I know that Big Ed Konetchy also had over 2,000 hits. 2,150 to be precise. He was born in La Crosse. 7 all star games - Ken Keltner (3B), most famous for robbing Joe DiMaggio twice in the game that ended his hit streak 1894 was the first full year pitcher's moved from 50' back to 60'6", and had to pitch from a set position instead of while running towards the plate. Offense spiked, the league average slash was .309/.378/.435. The entire Philadelphia OF hit over .400 not to mention Cross' .387. In 132 games, the original Billy Hamilton scored 198 runs.

Best Ginger Bauumont stat: Part of the only ever teammate triple crown where a different player on the same team won the batting, HR and RBI title. 1902 Pirates AVE .357 Beaumont HR 6 Tommy Leach RBI 91 Honus Wagner Other difficult WI trivia: Kuenn had the most all star appearances among WI born players with 10 (in 8 seasons) Who had the 2nd most? Behind Simmons' 2927 hits, who has the next most among WI born players with 2651?

Al Simmons was a hit machine, low walk % and one of the quickest players to reach 1000 hits by games played. However, he only led the league in hits twice, can you name the 2 other WI born players who led their league in hits more often than Simmons? (4 each) Everyone has heard of one, the other is very obscure

Can you name the other WI born HOFer besides Nichols, Grimes and Joss?

I would think Burleigh Grimes is ahead of Joss as well

Kid Nichols is the trivia answer

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have a player freezing on contact AND going on contact. Its not both ways. The play means go on contact, as soon as you notice it is a liner start going back. If it is not a liner keep going if it is on the ground, and obviously go back in plenty of time if it is a fly. I have successfully done it many times in so I am living proof it can be done. I even once got back to 3rd on a suicide squeeze play the batter popped up because as soon as I say him raise his bat up I started going back.

The worst part of replay is that managers can just stall while the bench coach calls someone to determine if they should challenge or not. As usual with all replay, they say it is intended for egregious mistakes, but since those never happen replay is used for ultra close calls that are often not even obvious from super slow-mo views. And there is no penalty for being wrong, as it has become clear that regardless of how many cahlleneges you have left you can just go talk to the ump and ask him to make the decision to review it "on his own". I would like to see them stop this stupid stall while they call someone routine, the only phone in the dugout goes to the bullpen, period. The manager should need to walk right out of the dugout right after the call and challenge it right away. Then they need to add some accountablity to prevent them from challenging super close calls, if the defense challenges and loses the pitcher must leave the game, if the offense challenges and loses the hitter or applicable base runner must leave the game. Then guys wouldnt be so quick to be called out and the instantly signal to the dugout for a challenge

The good old 3 hit shutout, at least the entire national broadcast was spent talking about the sausage race

This is the worst broadcast in the history of sports, including when Davy was on the radio. Also Kurkjian made the first stat mistake of life claiming Lou Gehrig is the greatest #4 of all-time. The answer is clearly Favre

They do have the best ERA and FIP in the NL

Good Lord this sausage race talk has been about 80% of the commentary

Yadier Molina Encarnacion If you got this without cheating, hats off. If you just looked it up that's not really point as I assume anyone can do that

First mention of the best record in the league, but immediately followed by a Kurkjian sausage race reminder, making that the ~20th mention of the subject

Very difficult question, but can you name the 2 players last season with XBH > SO (and qualified for the batting title)? 1 AL, 1 NL, both in their age 30 season

This Kurjian sausage race is apparently the story of the year, including a full analysis of running technique, where to put your hands, and video of him stretching, running the warning track and the stairs. And don't forget, you can go

I don't think they would have even put Augie on national TV if he pitched in the world series

Number of times Tim Kurkjian being in the sausage race has been brought up ~ 5 Number of times it has been pointed out the Brewers have the best record in the NL = 0

Interesting Rendon was playing in on Davis, he only has 1 bunt hit all season

I love Tim Kukjian

Of course they are talking about Braun's off season what-have-you now because the Brewers have had basically no national coverage despite having a top record all season

Seems odd that ESPN is not blacked out for me in Madison, I think I will watch the national broadcast just to hear the dumb/uninformed comments they make about the Brewers who they have never heard of

This is, for me, the one & only determinant as to whether or not a 'contact play' worked. I HATE the 'contact play'. It's bad strategy. Trust a professional baseball player to use his instincts and judgment, & read the ball off the bat to determine whether or not he tries to score on a groundball in the infield. Imo the 'contact play' is the equivalent of telling a runner on 3B to attempt to tag up & score on any flyball, no matter how deep or shallow it is, and without considering if the OF throwing the ball has an arm like Khris Davis or like Carlos Gomez. Runner's should try to tag from 3rd on every flyball (to an outfielder) just to draw a throw and then go back if you will be clearly out. It can allow other runners to advance or lead to a bad throw that you could score on. The difference is that you have the time to get back to the base because the ball is in the air. On the infield grounder contact play you cannot start running, notice the ball was a 2 hopper to the SS, and then go back to 3rd because you will be too far off. So really what you have to do it wait until the ball gets through, but then you lose the chance to score on balls that require the infielder to dive, or when they make a bad throw. The contact play allows you to score a run when no other play would allow you to score a run, so it is not a bad strategy. The question is if it is worth it in terms of the net WPA before and after, and I'm not sure how to get that data. It's also not that rare on these plays when no out occurs because the infielder throws home late and does not take the out at first. Of course the contact play does not override the "freeze on a liner" rule because in that scenario you can wait for the ball to get through and score easily. Infact, with the contact play on you should start running back to the base on a liner as soon as possible instead of freeze

4th in the bigs [pre]Rk Split Year OPS BA OBP SLG 1 OAK RISP 2014 .782 .257 .347 .435 2 COL RISP 2014 .779 .281 .349 .430 3 CHW RISP 2014 .777 .265 .348 .430 4 MIL RISP 2014 .777 .275 .343 .435 5 SEA RISP 2014 .756 .264 .327 .430 6 BAL RISP 2014 .754 .277 .342 .412 7 LAD RISP 2014 .745 .265 .344 .401 8 MIA RISP 2014 .742 .264 .344 .398 9 TOR RISP 2014 .739 .248 .327 .412 10 DET RISP 2014 .738 .266 .326 .412 11 KCR RISP 2014 .736 .274 .332 .403 12 CLE RISP 2014 .726 .243 .324 .403 13 PHI RISP 2014 .724 .238 .321 .403 14 LAA RISP 2014 .722 .248 .327 .395 15 PIT RISP 2014 .712 .249 .356 .356 16 CIN RISP 2014 .712 .242 .316 .396 17 ATL RISP 2014 .710 .247 .322 .388 18 MIN RISP 2014 .695 .238 .342 .353 19 NYY RISP 2014 .692 .255 .327 .365 20 SFG RISP 2014 .690 .251 .328 .362 21 TEX RISP 2014 .684 .251 .326 .358 22 BOS RISP 2014 .679 .232 .326 .353 23 WSN RISP 2014 .678 .222 .329 .350 24 TBR RISP 2014 .667 .226 .321 .346 25 STL RISP 2014 .665 .241 .327 .338 26 ARI RISP 2014 .664 .247 .305 .360 27 NYM RISP 2014 .662 .225 .321 .342 28 HOU RISP 2014 .636 .220 .303 .333 29 CHC RISP 2014 .624 .208 .292 .332 30 SDP RISP 2014 .600 .204 .280 .320[/pre]

Braun didnt even keep his eye on the ball, looked like he just jumped and hoped the ball would land in his glove