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