A schedule rant...

WHYGJG? asks the tough question- why don't they condense the regular season so we don't have a "snow bowl" for a World Series.

I completely agree. There should be more double headers scheduled in the season. They should also set the early season schedule with weather in mind (remember when Cleveland was snowed out for a week to begin the season a couple of years ago?). Stay down south to start the season and use the domes that remain! Don't worry, I'll still watch the games on FSD even if they are played in Florida or Texas.

2 All Star Games?

My friend Bob and I love to discuss baseball and the trivial aspects of it. So last week he asked me if there had ever been 2 All Star games in one year. My answer was "No." and "You're crazy." Everybody knows that there is only one All Star Game.

Well, Bob is a pretty smart guy and sent me enough info to convince me that there had, indeed, been a period of time when there were two All Star Games each year. I needed to know more. Here comes the history...

The relationship between the players and owners has always been stormy (I'm putting together a more comprehensive post on that for later). The short version is that the "Golden Rule" applied: "He who has the gold makes the rules." In MLB's case the gold belonged to the owners.

When the last competitor to the MLB collapsed in 1946 (The Mexican League) the players who had jumped over to it found themselves blacklisted by the MLB. At the same time a lawyer named Robert Murphy was secretly talking to MLB players, attempting to organize them into a union. TheAmerican Baseball Guild didn't really get anywhere, but it came close enough the the owners decided to allow the players to pick a group of player representatives. They also gave the players some concessions (minimum pay reductions, a minimum salary ($5000) and expense money for Spring Training and the promise to create a players' pension plan.

This brings us back to my original conversation with Bob about those doubled All Star Games. Although the owners had agreed to fund the pension plan that didn't mean they wanted to lose their own money to do it. So when the owners fell behind in their payments in 1959 a second game was organized to make up the difference. So, from 1959 to 1962 there were two All Star Games each summer. The first one was the "official" game. The second was for the players' pension.

There wasn't any apparent structure to when the 2nd game was to be played. One year they were only 2 days apart and other years they were almost a month apart. One year both games were played in National League cities. Other years they were split between the leagues. But eventually the fans started to vote with their tickets. The second game drew fewer and fewer fans. By 1961 there was talk of eliminating the 2nd game and after 1962 they did. The owners agreed to give more of the money from the original All Star Game to the players' fund and the 2nd game was dropped.

Here are some links to my sources...

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/all_star.jsp All of the scores of all of the All Star Games

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/haupert.mlb This is a fascinating paper on the economic changes in baseball over the years!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/sports/baseball/15sandomir.html A NY Times article about the double All Star Games

And the cutting begins...

The Tigers started making room on their roster today by cutting two players, Matt Treanor and Marcus "Country Strong!" Thames.

Treanor only played in 4 games as a Tiger and had 0 hits with 4 strike outs. He spent most of the year on Disabled List. He was picked up last December and was supposed to be Gerald Laird's back up. He was a free agent when DD signed him but a hip injury that required surgery in April took that option away. In his career he is a .232/.318/.629 hitter in 278 plate appearances.

Marcus did not have a strong year this year at the plate with only 13 HR in 87 games. Because he isn't a very solid defensive player (rating -2.6 on the Fangraphs UZR ratings) he has to produce with his bat and that hasn't happened. He had some great stretches with Detroit but his SLG% has dropped off this year. Ironically, looking at his other batting stats he appears to be taking more walks and striking out a little less. But his Isolated Power has dropped from .275 in 2008 to .202 in 2009. If you are going to make your name as a slugger that is a bad way to go. He missed quite a bit of the early season after a pulling a muscle in his rib cage and having a strained abdominal muscle in Spring Training.

I have to believe that someone will pick up Thames and take a chance that the early injuries were the cause of his drop in production.

Tiger Rookie of the Year... (guess who)

Rick Porcello was chosen as the Detroit Tigers' Rookie of the Year.

Detroit News article here.

We won't know if he won the American League ROY until Monday.

Congratulations to Kid Rick for a great year!

Who's My Tiger?

Curtis Granderson has been recognized by the other players as a great guy. He has won the Marvin Miller Man of the Year Award for his community work. One of the things that makes Curtis a great guy to watch is that he really sees that his fame can be put to good use by bringing attention to areas that need help.

If you follow the Tigers on Fox Sports Detroit you will see Granderson in ads for different charities. He is often in the news for his work with kids. He has been an ambassador for the game. He was an All Star this year. He has his own charity foundation named Grand Kids Foundation.

On top of all of this he is just fun to watch play baseball. He made two incredible catches this year in center field. One was way back in May of 2009 against the Indians. Then there was this one to save the 2009 season for another day in October against the White Sox.

Curtis Granderson dives to make a clutch catch in the eighth inning Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. (KIRTHMON F. DOZIER/ DFP)

Ryan Raburn celebrates following Curtis Granderson's big catch in the eighth inning against the Chicago White Sox in Detroit on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. (JULIAN H. GONZALEZ / DFP)

I do hope that all of Curtis' charity work doesn't interfere with his baseball. I remember Al Kaline making a similar comment when Granderson was given the Roberto Clemente Award for the Tigers. Jim Leyland has also implied that there was some conflict. Curtis keeps a grueling schedule and I have to wonder how that effects his game. It would be a shame for him to sink to less than super star status and have the charities he supports lose some of their spot lighting because of it.

But he is a son his parents can be proud of. Congratulations Curtis! You are my Tiger!