Victor Martinez, baseball player

Victor Martinez retired from Major League Baseball on Saturday. Martinez played 16 years in MLB – eight-plus with the Indians, one-plus with the Red Sox and the last seven with the Tigers.

Martinez was an All Star five times. He retired with a .295 lifetime batting average, 246 home runs and 1,178 runs batted in.

His last at bat, in the bottom of the first inning, Martinez hit a slow roller to the second baseman. He ran for all he was worth and beat the throw. An infield hit at 40 years old and his last at bat.

Some players have hit a home run in their last at bat and then trotted around the bases.

Martinez worked for his last hit. He ran it out, never slowing down until he was past first base.

Martinez looks like a baseball player. He wears his uniform socks high, the way a baseball player should. Martinez does not wear his uniform with the trouser cuffs below his ankles or below his shoes.

My daughter would like Martinez’s style of play. She says, “A player who wears his uniform the proper way, he plays baseball right. Those others, I want to tell them. ‘It’s a baseball uniform, not a track warmup suit.’”

She’s right. A player who wears his uniform right, he hustles. You won’t see those players lollygagging on an infield ground ball. Those players run out every ball.

Watch the Astros big three – Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer. Those players wear a proper uniform, and they hustle.

The Yankees big guy, Aaron Judge, wears his uniform properly. And he hustles.

Maybe high-socks players will set an example for the track warmup suit players. Maybe more players will play like Victor Martinez.

Two beers? Yeah, that’s loose enough

"I made the All-Star team (1962 PCL All-Star Team). I wasn't there more than 22 days, or something like that, and made the All-Star team. Not very long. Les says come on out, get a little gift or something while you're there, get in uniform and just go out and get dressed, go back and just [make an appearance]. My brother came in town, we had a couple of beers, played golf that day and I went to the ballpark. I said, well, I'll sit out in the bullpen. Collum's pitching and he's got the bases loaded, or something like that, and Les calls up the bullpen and he says, 'Dan, can you get somebody out?' And that was my big break, really. I said, 'Yes I'm loose. I had a couple of beers, is that all right?' I went in there, I don't know who they were, but I struck out the side and got out of the inning without giving up a run." - Dan Osinski (Ron Anderson, SABR Baseball Biography Project, 'Dan Osinski.')

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=osinsda01

Cartoons and Spock in MLB

A couple of baseball pitchers have a new kind of changeup known as a Bugs Bunny Change. “Like in the cartoon,” a player said, “when the batter swings three times before the ball gets to the plate.” The player was not yet 30 years old, which means: (1) he watches old cartoons; and, (2) he found a station that shows old cartoons.

Another changeup is called a Vulcan Change. To throw the change, a pitcher holds the ball between his middle and fourth fingers.

Throw a good change and prosper.

An open letter to Major League Baseball

I was angered this morning when watching on MLB Network an advertisement for the 2015 All Star Game.

The advertisement portrayed several younger Major League All Stars and then showed a baseball field within what appeared to be the Coliseum in Rome during the time of the Roman Empire.

The picture of the Coliseum brought to my mind scenes of brutality and torture from Roman murder for pleasure of tens of thousands of Jews, Christians, African slaves, prisoners of war, as well as lions, elephants, bears and other animals.

Utilization of the Coliseum shows MLB has little if any knowledge of history, nor of disturbing images such connection might bring to young minds.

Hell in a handbasket

Baseball today:

No separate umpires, American League and National League. No presidents of the two leagues; the commissioner will make decisions, thank you. Automatic ejection for arguing balls and strikes. No running into the catcher. No catcher blocking the plate. Instant replay challenges on safe or out. Automatic ejection for arguing replay decision.

So, players, managers and coaches cannot argue safe or out, balls or strikes.

Included this year in spring training games -- Clocking batters and pitchers to speed up the game.

Was a time one of the most American things about baseball was, it was a game not determined by time, but by results.

And now … The new envelope, please.

Major League Baseball has an ambassador for inclusion. Billy Bean.

Inclusion. Players of color? Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Korean, Japanese inclusion?

Nope. Bean’s job is to “provide guidance and training related to efforts to support those in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community throughout Major League Baseball.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2014/07/15/mlb-names-former-major-league-outfielder-billy-bean-as-first-ambassador-for-inclusion/

OK, Bean was appointed last July by Bud Selig, the worst commissioner MLB owners ever hired, spurred partly by Selig’s inclusion in the club of owners. Selig owned the Milwaukee Brewers when he was (a) named interim commissioner, and (b) when he was named commissioner. Among Selig’s accomplishments: Having his own team moved from the American League to the National League; and several years later moving the Houston Astros from the National to American League. Why did Selig not just move his Brewers back to the American League?

Ambassador of inclusion.
There are events in this world when I know it is time for me to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Ambassador of inclusion.

GMAFB.