Crazy Legs

Howard, that is.

I guess I didn't look deep enough at the Tigers' roster. Always associated him with the Dodgers and Washington. Way to stay on that one.

This ability to research gopher balls is quite resourceful and more than a little ironic. In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir, gopher'.

His resume seems a little light at first glance. His primary bona fides: 1 MVP, 1 Gold Glove, 6-time all-star. A deeper dive shows more. Second in rookie of the year voting to practically forgotten Cubs catcher Geovany Soto in 2008 and you can argue Votto had a better year. Cubs won 97 games that year. Reds won 74. So there's that. Votto was a top 7 MVP vote getter 6 times. Got MVP votes 9 times in 17 seasons. Hit .300 or better in 9 seasons. Led the league in on base percentage 7 times, a feat surpassed by some guys you might have heard of: Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby. Had 7 seasons with at least a .300, AVG, .400 OBP and .500 SLUG. Career: .294/.409/.511. Hit 20 HRs 9 times. Hit 30 doubles 10 times. Had 100 RBI 3 times. Scored 100 runs 5 times. Played at least 158 games in 5 seasons. Over 2,000 hits, over 350 HRs. At one point, his lifetime batting average was .311. At one point his lifetime slugging was .533, higher than Mike Schmidt and Willie Stargell. One of the best Canadian baseball players ever and already in the Canadian baseball hall of fame. Played his entire MLB career with one team. He signed with Toronto but never made the big league club. Certainly a Reds all-time great: Walks: All-time leader for the Reds with 1,365. Homers: Second with 356. Extra base hits: Second with 837. Times on base: Second with 3,581. Total bases: Third with 3,644. RBI: Third with 1,144. Runs: Fourth with 1,171. Hits: Fifth with 2,135. Three-homer game with a walk-off grand slam: In 2012 against the Cardinals. Slam came with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Exceptional hitting precision: Went six years without pulling a foul ball into the stands and four years without popping up on the pull side. The Prince of Process: Knighted by Brian Kenny.

Oh OK. I thought since you had been pumping Gregg really hard that you knew a lot about the team.

Can Dixie really win?

Dixie's had trouble running the ball against Simon lately with an average of 106.5 rushing yards per game the last two meetings: 133 last year and 80 the year before according to the stats Dixie reported to the KHSAA. Simon has had no problem running the ball against Dixie the last two meetings with 229 yards rushing last year and 496! two years ago for an average of 363.5, more than three times the rushing yards Dixie's been able to manage against Simon. If the old adage of running well and stopping the run wins football games, Simon will win on Friday. That said. I'm going with Dixie, just to be a contrarian while looking for an upset pick. New Colonel, tell me why I'm right about Dixie tomorrow.

Good estimate. Seems reasonable. Can you find one?

Yep and Beltran was on his way with over 200.

You're right! I stand corrected up there. Sloppy, sloppy. Errors are not OK in baseball. But it's OK though that Jeter's not in the club. As I said, not a Yankees fan.

Hey you're pretty good at this. Finley and Alou both hit their 300th HR that year for the Giants. All three guys were age 39 or older.

Another good find. I totally forgot Belle was in Baltimore. Will Clark had 253 HRs before he got to the Orioles for the 1999 and 2000 seasons, so he was pretty close.

It's a big debate topic since his recent retirement. What does everybody think? Does Joey Votto deserve to be in the Baseball Hall Of Fame

That checks out. Good work. I was a big fan of those three BoSox players, Rice especially. Great find with the ChiSox too. Thanks for socking it to me!

Corbin Frederick Douglass Ballard Dixie Heights Lloyd

I was wondering if there's ever been three active teammates with 300 career home runs like Judge, Rizzo and Stanton right now on the Yankees. Off the top, I was wondering if the Reds might have had a 300 HR club like that, and they don't. My second thought was if Billy Williams, Ernie Banks and Ron Santo were in that club with the Cubs. They were at the end of 1971. Williams and Banks, in his last year in baseball, both had over 300 career homers when Ron Santo's last homer of the year that season gave him 300. I was surprised by how many times the Yankees have done this although in hindsight I shouldn't be. Nobody added to Ruth and Gehrig after they joined the 300 HR club but that was way way before Steinbrenner, free agency and the homer happy 2000s Two Yankees squads have FOUR guys with at least 300 career homers and another team that almost had FIVE. The 2013 Yanks re-added Alphonso Soriano when he had over 400 HRs and they still had Derek Jeter, Mark Texiera and Alex Rodriguez on the team with over 300 plus Vernon Wells wound up with 260 by the end of that year. The 2014 Yanks had Jeter, Texiera, Soriano and added Carlos Beltran, who had more than 300 HRs while A-Rod was suspended for the season. Had A-Rod been active they would have had FIVE active 300 HR hitters on the team. In 2011 when the Yankees had A-Rod, Mark Texiera and Andruw Jones all of them had 300 career homers. Also on the team was Jorge Posada with 275, Jeter 240 and Eric Chavez with 230. Six guys with at least 200 career homers. For the 2012 Yanks after Posada retired Raul Ibanez came on board and had 271 HRs when Jeter, A-Rod and Texiera were still with the team and past 300. Three there. The 2015 Yanks after Jeter and Soriano retired still had Texiera, Beltran and unsuspended A-Rod in the 300 club. 2016 Yanks: Texiera, Beltran, A-Rod The Yankees' six-year streak of at least three hitters with 300 career homers ended in 2017 when Aaron Judge was in his second season. Full disclosure: I hate the Yankees. Somewhat close call: Bobby Murcer had 252 HRs and Don Baylor had 235 for the 1983 Yanks when Dave Winfield and Graig Nettles had 300. Close call: Brooksie had at most 268 HR when he played with Frank and Boog in Baltimore Not so close: Willie Horton had 213 HR in '74 when Cash and Kaline retired in Detroit. I thought of this trio after the Cubs but Willie hit fewer HRs than I thought. Bad timing: Luis Gonzalez, Steve Finley and Matt Williams were teammates in Arizona from 1999-2003 but never on the team together when they had 300 career HRs. Anybody else want to chime in on the 300 HR club for teammates?

The good feelings come from those being a little more fair to coach Sphire. The oversimplification and cherry-picked numbers here need some addressing not to mention some additional context. They were 5-6 in 2021 his first season with Weinrich's players. That was three whole years ago. They lost to CovCath by a single point that year the first time they played them under Sphire. He beat CovCath his second year at CovCath. They lost to CovCath last year but so did every other opponent until CovCath got to the championship game. Highlands lost to CovCath by 14 points last year. Only four teams played CovCath closer. It was Highlands' only regular season loss. They didn't lose again for another 12 weeks and finished 12-2. They are 21-5 the last two seasons. Yeah, you'd like to see deeper playoff advancement the last three years but they did make the state semis last year and lost to Cooper by just two points after beating them by seven earlier. They beat Cooper by 29 the year before. They beat Cooper by 28 Sphire's first year. The accomplishments far outweigh the disappointments. Cake, please.

That was a couple years ago. Last year the Touchdown Club made him a cake for getting 300 wins.

FYI: They trashed the Wing-T at Walton.

Sounds like the frosh QB Reed is going to take occasional game snaps when Ludlow wants to be more flexible with the use of regular starting QB Mays.

This might be stating the obvious but coach Sphire deserves a ton of credit for the new culture at Highlands. Smart coach, great leader, authentic real person, good with people in a down home folksy kind of way, totally prepared, cares immensely about his players, gets them publicity and they're all his now that he's in his fourth year as Bluebirds head coach. A genius hire by the school and a great call by Highlands AD Wes Caldwell to recognize the opportunity and hire his old coach. Just a cosmic series of events to land him because if Caldwell isn't at Highlands, is Sphire at Highlands? If Sphire isn't at Highlands, who is? And would that head coach be doing as well as Sphire? The natives were getting restless in Fort Thomas before he came along and I sense less restlessness and a little more satisfaction. Have some cake.

UPDATED. Nine finalists with # of vouches for the Greatest Living Baseball Player: Bonds 2 Griffey Jr. 2 Henderson 2 Koufax Bench Rose Pujols Schmidt Ryan If we were to add one more for an even 10 candidates, who would he be? My candidates for those two spots in alphabetical order: George Brett, Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Eddie Murray, Sadaharu Oh, Cal Ripken, Carl Yastrzemski, Robin Yount. I'm leaning Yaz or Rip. Yaz's 96.5 career WAR leads that list. Had one of the greatest most consequential seasons ever in 1967 with the Red Sox when he was the best baseball player on the planet as part of the Impossible Dream: MVP, Triple Crown, All-Star, Gold Glove. He won 3 batting titles, 7 gold gloves and was an all-star 18 times. 40th all-time with 452 HRs which is 18th among left-handed hitters. First AL player in history with 3000 hits and 400 HRs. 646 doubles: NINTH all-time! He ran: 168 career steals, 23 in 1970. There's a grandeur about him. The name . . . Yaz. It's cool. He's kind of a darkhorse because it's getting to be a long time ago when he played. I mean that's Beatles and Summer of Love territory around '67. Ripken is next in WAR at 95.9. Obviously more recent. I think most every ball fan knows his bona fides: The Streak, one of the first of the new bigger power hitting shortstops, a mystique about him kinda like Yaz. 3000 hits and 400 HRs kinda like Yaz only Rip was a SS! Rookie of the Year, 2 MVPs, 2 Gold Gloves, 19-time all-star, 8-time Silver Slugger. Won a Home Run Derby. He was clutch: .336 lifetime in 28 postseason games with a 1983 World Series championship. Didn't run much and career OBP wasn't great: .340. But 2,632 consecutive games from 1982 to 1998!! It's still mind boggling. The others ranked by career WAR: Brett 88.6 WAR, 48th all-time Chipper 85.3 WAR, 52nd all-time Yount 77.4 WAR Jeter 71.3 WAR Murray 68.7 WAR Just FYI: Greg Maddox 106.6 career WAR, 28th all-time Randy Johnson 101.1 career WAR, 30th all-time

Sold. Not sure why I left him off since I also talked about him. It's the coffee...

Why do bad baseball players with no power want to play at a NASCAR venue? Because they want to hit a ball on the track! lol

A little more than a month in and it looks like we have eight players who have been vouched for as Greatest Living Baseball Player. After re-reading the responses and parsing the wording, here they are with number of vouches: Bonds 2 Griffey Jr. 2 Henderson 2 Koufax Bench Rose Pujols Schmidt If we were to add two more for an even 10 candidates, who would they be? My candidates for those two spots in alphabetical order: George Brett, Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Eddie Murray, Sadaharu Oh, Cal Ripken, Carl Yastrzemski, Robin Yount.