The Baseball Cube Blog

Relocated...

2008-01-16T15:06:00.000-05:00

This blog is now located at http://sports-cube.blogspot.com and is called Cube Notes.

I'm Back!

2007-11-12T21:21:00.000-05:00

+ The Vacation to Disney World was terrific. The kids had a great time as did the wife and I. I highly recommend visiting Mickey Mouse and friends.

The Vacation was 2 weeks long and only partially explains my long absence from writing the Blog.

+ Truth be told, I have been a little burnt on baseball and have been focusing on a new site, which is another one of those work-in-progresses. The Hockey Cube is now active and should be growing a little bit each week. I realize that there aren't as many hockey fans on the web as there are for baseball but hockey is my first love and I truthfully cannot understand how more Americans don't love the game as well.

Baseball and Hockey used to be neck and neck for me but since the Expos left town, I find ball games too long and the lack of parity among teams unfair. I'm still a fan, i still follow the game but its not what it used to be.

The Baseball Cube is not going anywhere though. The two Cube sites will co-exist but you might find a lot more updates on THC compared to TBC over the next few months.

Indy stats are coming though, for those of you have been asking. I'm a bit slow at this point but hopefully by the end of the year, if not, before Spring Training.

Keep checking in for updates!

The Happiest Place on Earth! We hope.

2007-09-21T07:48:00.000-04:00

+ I haven't posted much lately for two reasons. The first is that there really hasn't been any site updates. The second reason is that I have had less time to actually work on TBC since its been a hectic 2-3 weeks of family obligations, day-job obligations and preparation for my upcoming Disney vacation.

Most of my time has been spent compiling hockey data for The Hockey Cube, which should be coming to the web by the end of the year. I know that hockey is nowhere near what baseball is on the web but I am hoping to actually change that by changing how people look at hockey statistics. Baseball has sabr-metrics. I'm hoping to come with something called "ice-o-metrics".

The next two weeks will be spent outside of Canada, at the Happiest Place on Earth. The wife and I will test to see if it can still remain the Happiest Place with a 3-year old and a 4-year old. Especially a 3-year old who uses the bathroom 22 times a day.

+ I realize that The Baseball Cube has mistakes here and there and I wanted to convey the message that the best way to let us know is to send us an email through this channel. I think this is a better method than to broadcast the error to the baseball world.

Groundball% for Major Leaguers

2007-09-11T20:32:00.000-04:00

+ Now, there's proof that Roger McDowell was an extreme ground ball pitcher. Every Major Leaguer now has their GB% listed next to their stat records from 1957 to 2006. The calculation is fairly simple:

Every ball put into play was assigned as either a groundball or a non-groundball. Lineouts, popouts, foulouts and flyouts are considered to be non-grounders.

Otis Nixon hit 57% of the balls he put in play on the ground. Imagine how effective he might have been had he aimed for a 65% gb%.

Kirby Puckett started his career as a very good ground-ball hitter but evolved into a flyball hitter once he became a power hitter.

Brady Anderson was a poor man's power hitter until 1996 when he clubbed 50 homers, twice as much as his next best total (24). 37% of his hits were in the air that year. His career average was 45%.

You would think that Bert Blyleven would have an extremely low gb% the season he gave up 50 homers (1986). Strangely enough, his gb% was 53 which suggests that when the ball was hit in the air, it went pretty far a lot of the time.

Just another dimension to the Cube's data.

+ I noticed that Baseball-Reference got into the Minor League Statistics game. I can't say that I am ecstatic about the competition but its a smart move on his part. As always, we'll both coexist and offer the baseball world a slightly different view of the same data. And we'll continue to make baseball the most advanced sport on the Internet.

Asdrubal Cabrera Sponsores

2007-09-11T07:57:00.001-04:00

+ Asdrubal Cabrera is a 21-year old shortstops currently playing with the Indians. The page has been sponsored by ItsAlessandro who now gets 25% off his next sponsorship.

Sean Fesh and other Sponsorship Notes

2007-09-08T08:10:00.000-04:00

+ Sean Fesh, a career minor leaguer out of Connecticut is the latest player to be sponsored. Fesh's Fan Club Home Page is the generous sponsor for the next year. A perfect fit.

Fesh is a left-handed pitcher who was drafted by the Astros in 1991 in the 61st round and he signed, a feat in itself. As a left-handed reliever for most of his career, he put up good numbers at all levels, reaching AAA in 1995 but never going higher, almost inexplicably. One would have thought a lefty-reliever with a career minor league ERA of 3.32 would have had the luck to have at least once chance but it was not to be.

+ Speaking of sponsorships, there's going to be a big change to the system in the next few days. The enhancement will involve improving exposure for those who sponsor a page by propogating your web sites to other pages on the site that are not sponsored. The feature will only be for those sponsors with a web site listed and there is no extra charge for this exposure. The only downside is that if you sponsor a page, your link will not be propogated until the next site build but lately, that's been about once a week so no need to worry. More information in the coming days.

+ Another new column is coming to the player stats areas for major leaguers. Ground-ball% will be added to major league stats in the coming days.

Northeast Ball Gloves

2007-09-07T07:38:00.001-04:00

+ Special thanks to Northeast Ball Gloves for sponsoring the New York Yankees home page. Sponsorships are a great way to show your appreciation for The Baseball Cube and help to support us, especially if you're a frequent visitor and use the data often.

If you would like to sponsor a page but don't want to make the effort of going through the forms and process, just contact us and we'll do all the work and walk you through it.

Some more Player Page Tweaks

2007-09-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

+ The player pages have been refreshed and have some small changes:

Lineup Sequence info: I've calculated, for each major leaguer per season, where he batted in the lineup most often for his team. Some players may have several lineup positions listed and if that's the case, the player has had a significant amount of games at each lineup slot. Its fun to watch a player's evolution from one part of the batting order to another. It can also help to explain his stats (RBI totals, SB totals).

Leagues: You can now click on the league to see a brief Year-in-Review where you'll find standings, award winners, league leaders and a player register along with some other goodies, depending on which league you select.

MLB League Display: You'll now see a player's League listed as "AL" or "NL" for major league seasons. Previously, it was listed as "MLB"

NCAA Links: I've now added links for NCAA seasons of 2002 or later which will send you to the team statistics page for the school. The stats have always existed but for some reason, the links weren't there.

iPod Update

She's functional but she can't scroll. In fact, the HOLD button doesn't work anymore either. So can an iPod survive the washing machine. I guess the answer is both YES and NO. My next step is to try to send it back to Apple to get a new one. Somebody mentioned that this was a viable option so its worth a try.

Year in Review - by League

2007-09-04T08:24:00.000-04:00

+ Another one of those long overdue projects, the Year in Review is a single page per league (per season) displaying factual information about that season. The feature is available for MLB from 1903-2006, the Minors between 1978 and 2006 and College Ball (Div I) from 2002-2006. Here are the page elements:

Standings: Division by Division for each season, including how far each team went in the playoffs. Lists the team's manager and for minor league teams, their MLB affiliate.

Awards: MVP, Pitcher of the Year, Rookie of the Year and all-star selections for all leagues. Also includes Gold-Glove and Silver-Slugger for the Majors.

Additional Team Info: Payroll and team attendance.

Affiliates: For Major League teams, a list of affiliates for each team with links.

Drafted Players: For NCAA Conferences, a list of all Major League draft picks from the conference for that season, in order of Overall selection.

League Leaders: For all major batting and pitching stat categories.

Player Register: All players participating in at least one game for the League that season. Also includes the player's highest [known] level reached as of 2006.

iPod Update Part I

2007-09-01T16:49:00.000-04:00

+ The iPod that went through the wash was plugged in to charge on Friday morning by my wife.

I arrived home from work Friday evening and the iPod seemed like it charged properly. It turned on. There was much rejoicing.

But wait. The scroll wouldn't work. In fact, about the only thing I could do was press the button and jump from menu to menu but I could only select the first option. Luckily, this takes me to my playlists area where I could technically program all my songs into my playlist and run the iPod like that.

Maybe. This morning, the iPod was no longer charged. Huh? I plugged it back in and its currently recharging and hopefully can be salvaged later this weekend. Stay Tuned!

The iPod Washing Machine "Experiment"

2007-08-31T10:03:00.001-04:00

+ I brought my iPod to my day job yesterday where I worked out at lunch time at the company gym. Before showering, I tucked my iPod into my shorts pocket. Upon arriving home from work, I placed the sweaty workout clothes into the washing machine but did not turn on the machine.

Fast forward to this morning where I'm driving into work at 8:30am. It occurs to me that my I-pod is queued to be washed. I will call my wife when I get to work.

Fast forward to 10am. I still haven't called my wife. While teaching someone the basics of SQL, it occurs to me that my I-pod is still queued to be washed. I call my wife.

"Question: " I ask, impersonating Dwight Schrute from The Office. She doesn't get the reference. "The Office" I tell her.
"You know I'm not an 'Office-iniado'." She giggles at her witty wordplay.
"Did you run any laundry" I ask, crossing my fingers.
"Yes, 1 load. why?"
Dammit. "Check my shorts pocket."
A few seconds elapse. "Not smart honey" I can sense her shaking her head and actually waving a finger at the phone. Not smart indeed.

The iPod wouldn't turn on, obviously traumatized by the spin cycle and the sudden invasion of soap.

And so the experiment begins. Can an iPod survive a washing machine. The verdict will be released this weekend.

New Advertiser: SimDynasty.Com

2007-08-30T07:48:00.001-04:00

+ SimDynasty.Com is a baseball simulation web site that has recently partnered up with The Baseball Cube. They have 106 single-season leagues, 117 Multi-season leagues and 5094 teams within those leagues. If you're a baseball junkie, you've got to check them out.

Player Pages Tweaked; Olympic Participants

2007-08-28T17:17:00.001-04:00

+ A few player page tweaks.

1. For each stat record for the majors (since 1903) and the minors (since 1978), a player's primary positions are listed. The rule of thumb is this: The player's primary position is listed and a secondary position if it had more than half the number of games the player played at the first position. Basically means that only relevant positions are listed. This formula could be revised in the future if anyone has any objections. Its a good indicator of a player's positional evolution.

2. I've been trying to figure out a way to have sponsorships provide more exposure to those who were kind enough to sponsor a page. They've been moved down to the area between the player profile section and the stats. Hopefully this will encourage people to support us and get something out of it.

3. The "Billboard" where you see the site updates as they occur has been moved to the top of the page, below the header.

4. I've added some shopping links to the player pages. Essentially, they're links to shopping categories for the last team for which a player played.

Baseball Lists
+ 5 Walks in a game.
+ Olympic Participants since 1984.

Boxscores Line Scores

2007-08-26T17:15:00.000-04:00

+ Seems as though a major component of each boxscore was missing. The linescore, with runs scored by inning has now been added to each boxscore.

Speaking of the boxscores, I wanted to remind you of a few of the boxscores best features:

Milestones: At the bottom of each boxscore, you can find out if any even number milestones were reached during the game. You won't information on broken records such as Rose's 4192nd hit, but you will find his 4000th as well as his 1st.

Streaks: Though limited to batting streaks, its still a good indicator of who was hot as of a given boxscore. Also below the boxscore, there is a list of all players who currently have a streak of at least one game (who played in that game) where they hit safely. There is also a list of players who had streaks of 5 or more games broken.

Boxscore Notes: This is where Rose's 4192nd hit should be included and its also where anything interesting that happened in the game can be listed. Who threw out the first pitch, who got injured, odd plays, ceremonies, national anthem singers, weather notes and whatever else you can think of.

A History of the Dramatic: The Walk-Off Grand Slam

2007-08-25T16:07:00.000-04:00

+ New lists added:

- 500 Career Home Runs - as of August 21,2007.
- Best WHIP per year - Walks+hits/Innings Pitched. A measure of pitcher effectiveness.
- Walk-off Grand Slams - since 1957. A history of the dramatic.
- Complete Game Shutouts without a Strikeout - since 1957.

Where are they Now? Jobs in Baseball

2007-08-22T12:52:00.000-04:00

+ Jobs in Baseball tracks a player's career outside of baseball and is now available on several player pages. This new feature is displayed after all statistics and is listed as "Jobs in Baseball - off the Field". The types of jobs included can range from managerial and coaching positions (all levels) to broadcasting or executive positions within an organization. Any position related to baseball can be included. The idea is to satisfy a lot of the "Where is he now" questions that fans might have for their favorite players.

Its another one of those work-in-progress projects and as of now, only 2007 managers and coaches have been included (with some exceptions) and their personal history. Though I plan on adding many more players in the future, I am hoping that site visitors will be able to help me with this project and fill in the blanks for a lot of players post-playing career whereabouts. At this time, only players currently in the database will be eligible to display jobs in baseball.

Every player has a "Jobs in Baseball" section, though most of them are blank. Each one has a link that can be clicked which will bring you to the profile update page and from there, you can simply list the jobs in the notes section for the player and we will update it as we receive them, just like the player pages.

Eventually, this information will be available on statistics pages so that you may review jobs from a team's perspective.

PenBall: A True Underdog Story

2007-08-20T17:08:00.000-04:00

+ The game was called PenBall. My friend and I invented it when we were about 14. It was called PenBall because the object of the game was to hit a marble with a pen. Any old Papermate would do and a hungry-hungry hippo marble worked best. The game involved the pitcher underhanding a marble to the batter who would swing and if contact was made would crawl around the bases. In theory, it was a good idea but there were some caveats. First, the crawling around the bases was not good for the knees or the Adidas sweatpants, secondly, the carpet took a beating, third, the sound of the marble slapping the window or any other piece of furniture did not sit well with my friend's mother and lastly, the sound of the marble bouncing off the pitcher's skull did not sit well with the pitcher.

So we decided that the pen could stay but the marble had to go. Enter the ping-pong ball. Little did we know at the time that the Ping-Pong ball was the perfect indoor ball. It was soft, it was light, it didn't sound threatening and it could be manipulated like a baseball in terms of pitch selection. Throwing a curveball with a marble was not an option.

At first, it was a pitcher's game. Though fastballs were somewhat hittable, the curveballs, screwballs, sinkers and knuckleballs proved too challenging to hit with the papermate and furthermore, swinging at that changeup when expecting a fastball caused some pens to fly towards the wall causing unwanted ink trails left behind. It was also very difficult to make solid contact with the pen and after a few games, the pen would inevitably break causing ink to spew out onto our hands and we would have to act quickly to save the carpet. The other drawback was that sometimes the pen would break into two. It also didn't take us long to realize that leaving the cap on the pen could be hazardous to the pitcher lest the cap escape the pen.

We had a meeting to address the situation. It was now the papermate's turn to go and after some testing and deliberation which included ping pong paddles, miniature baseball bats, markers that left bigger/darker ink trails on walls and other kitchenware (spatulas, wooden spoons, ladles) a suitable replacement was found. The hairbrush was chosen as the replacement and after some consultation, it was also decided to leave the game with its original name of PenBall. It sounded a little bit more masculine than BrushBall.

And that's when the game took off.

The rules were simple at first. The pitcher would sit in front of the fireplace. 10 feet away, the batter sat on his knees in front of the staircase, bat (brush) waving. The strike zone was a sofa cushion, standing up on end, in front of the stairs. If the ball hit the cushion, it was a strike. Even the small portion of the cushion (it was an end-cushion) that jutted out was considered a strike and so once in a while, a well-placed high and inside heater could be a called strike three. And the best part about having the brush was if the pitcher was recovering his vision from a line drive to the eye or tending to a fireplace/brick collision, the batter could pass the time by brushing his hair.

There was no need to run in this game, except by the pitcher/fielder to gather up a batted ping-pong ball. If the ball was hit past the pitcher, off the facing of the fireplace and nearby wall between the left foul pole (The stereo) and the right foul pole, (the dining room wall), it was considered a single. A ball that was hit off the stereo or into the corner behind the television that set next to the dining room was a double. Anything off the clock was a (rare) triple and a fly ball over the clock was a home run. A ball off the ceiling was foul since there was no way to determine its eventual landing place.

A caught ball was out but catching a ping pong ball coming flying back at you at 70mph does not occur very often unless it somehow gets lodged into your groin, which did happen on occasion. My friend saved many runs with his forehead. Besides strikeouts (mostly on curveballs low and away), outs were mostly recorded on ground balls blocked goalie-style by the pitcher who would then have to seamlessly throw the ball back to the cushion on the fly. We used our mental clocks to judge whether the throw was in time. If the ball was fielded cleanly by the fielder and the throw touched the cushion, the batter was out. On a hard-hit ball, a perfect throw would get the double-play as long as the fielder called the correct base. On balls that were not fielded cleanly, a perfect throw would be required.

On hits: With a runner on first, if a double was hit, the batter would have to announce his intention immediately for the runner. If he wished the runner to score on a double he would announce "Coming Home" whereby the fielder would need to retrieve the ball rather quickly and toss a strike back to the home plate cushion. The cushion would always act as the intended base. If the fielder fumbled the ball or was unable to retrieve it in a timely manner from the time the declaration of "coming home" was made, the player would take the extra base.

Some other interesting rules: If a batter wanted to steal, he could call it at the moment that the pitcher was about to release the ball. If the pitch was a ball, the runner was safe. If it was going to be a strike, well, the batter had to swing and make contact to protect the runner. If he missed or took a called strike, the (lead) runner was out. Also, if a pitch were to land on the stairs, bypassing the cushion altogether, a wild pitch might occur. The rule was such that if the ball landed on the first stair only, the runners could advance, otherwise, it was just a ball.

My friend's parents were good sports about this game. The game was played in a living room, not a rec room or play room. There was a fireplace, a piano, nicknacks, a television, a stereo and a dining room nearby. Only a single duck from a hanging mosaic not far from the right-field foul pole (the dining room) was broken. And somehow, the game went on.

The game became an obsession and we kept track of stats, played an entire series in an after-school afternoon and we still wanted more. There was a perfection in the game that seemed only possible in baseball. We had simulated the outside game with an indoor version that was both challenging and fun.

With a pitch arsenal of fastballs, curveballs, screwballs, sinkers, changeups and even the pascual-ball (or blooper pitch)**, the batter never knew what was coming. And since we allowed the fastballs to be fast enough to make the other pitches effective as off-speed pitches, an outside curveball on an 0-2 pitch was actually quite tough to lay off.

We threw and batted the same way the pitchers threw so when (former Expo) Joe Hesketh entered the game, we'd resort to throwing with our left hand. A lefty/lefty matchup was just as difficult as in the pros but since we were both righties throwing left-handed resulted in a lot more batter being hit by the pitch.

And like every made-up game, there were pitfalls. There was the right-handed batter follow-through which could result in the wall being smashed. That same nearby wall, about 3 feet closer to the pitcher than the strike-zone sofa cushion, also prevented wide curveballs from making it to the cushion. There was the kitten who insisted on hiding in the foyer adjacent to the batter's box where he would hide out of our view and pounce on wild pitches and slow ground balls. There was the episode of the broken brush that wasn't quite so well-received by my friend's sisters. We were forced to actually go shopping for brushes that matched the requirements of our game and to this date, we're not sure how a ping pong ball broke a brush. Another pitfall was the inside pitch ground ball off the hand. We could not rule it as a hit-by-pitch as long as the batter was swinging and it was instead ruled a foul ball. Finally, there was the line drive foul ball off the nearby piano that often resulted in the ball ricocheting right back into the batter's face causing a red circle to appear in the affected area for a few subsequent innings.

The game evolved a little bit almost every time we played but eventually, somewhere in the early to mid 1990s, it finally died, making way for girls and parties and a social life that did not come so easily in our teens. And somehow, after all these years, at the age of 34, I still have the urge to play PenBall one more time.

** While with the Montreal Expos in the late 1980s, Pascual Perez had a pitch in his arsenal where he would lob the ball quite high into the air at a slow speed. The ball would somehow find itself into the strike zone for a called strike. Most batters did not know how to adjust to a 35-40mph and would wind up stepping into the ball twice, the first time as Pascual let go of the ball, the second time as the ball reached the plate. Most did not end up swining. Except for Glenn Davis who hit a big 2-run homer off a Perez "Pascual-Ball" in 1988.

Matt Murton

2007-08-16T07:52:00.000-04:00

+ Thanks to Baseball Diamond News for their sponsorship of Matt Murton of the Cubs. The 25 year-old Murton is doing a pretty good job with the Cubs as they chase the Brewers.

Baseball Diamond News is a Cubs blog started back in December of 2004.

+ Sponsorships are a great way to help support The Baseball Cube.

2007 College Stats, 2006 Japanese Stats and a new Stats Page Feature

2007-08-14T20:43:00.000-04:00

+ The Oregon State Beavers won their second consecutive College World Series Championship back in July. OSU's statistics as well as stats for about 280 other Division I schools from their spring schedule are now available on the site.

+ I've also finally gotten around to compiling 2006 Japanese league statistics as well. I don't actually follow the Japanese leagues myself but I think a decent portion of the TBC population does so enjoy and sorry its so late!

+ The stats pages also have a new feature which might look familiar if you've ever been to Baseball-Reference. I use my stats pages a lot and I've always found them a bit overwhelming, especially for teams where pitchers were able to hit. I tried sorting them by At Bats and Innings Pitched but it still looks slightly unorganized. So I took a first step and assigned a "role" to each player and sorted accordingly. For now, batters with the most at bats for each position are considered to be that position's "Starter" and these players will be listed at the top of the batting stats. For Pitchers, I have denoted Starting Pitchers (ST), Closers (CL) and Relief Pitchers (Those with > x# games where x is a certain % of his team's games). I'll be trying to pigeon hole the other players on the team with certain roles so that its easy to tell the backup catcher, the utility infielder and so on.

+ Fernando Tatis is the only MLB player to have hit two grand-slams in an inning but there have been 12 instances of a player hitting two grand salamis in a game.

And what would a section full of lists be without a list of Hall of Famers.

Yearly Singles Leaders

2007-08-13T22:39:00.001-04:00

+ Perhaps I should call this the "Ichiro List". I've added the yearly Singles Leaders to the Baseball Lists section.

+ Speaking of Baseball Lists, they are now linked from the player pages. If a player is listed on any of the pages in our Baseball Lists section, a link to that list will appear under his player profile. For some reason, I find this a fascinating site addition. For now, the lists are only appearing on players active in 2007. I should get the rest of the pages up within a couple of days.

+ Thanks to TrueBlueLa.Com for sponsoring the Clayton Kershaw page for a year.

Batter vs Pitcher: Summary Data

2007-08-13T07:22:00.000-04:00

+ Expanding on my latest obsession of batter and pitcher head to head matchups, I've added another section to the Cube. This time, I've included summary level data for each player. This includes career batting totals (minus 1999) against any pitcher the player has faced in his career at least once. And conversely, pitchers will display each batter they have faced. Players who have been around for a little while will have a long list of summary data on his page and so I would recommend a little patience while these pages load.

Derek Jeter vs Opposing Pitchers
Trevor Hoffman vs Opposing Batters

The summary data is linked from each major leaguer's profile page under the "Player Features" section below the Awards, Transactions and Disabled List visits.

The cool part is that even batters who pitched will have a page of summary data so you can find some players to laugh at for striking out against a position player. And of course, pitchers batting records are also tracked.

Finally, what would a page of summary data be without the ability to drill-down to see the detailed-level data. Each opponent has a "details" link which interfaces nicely with the head2head page where you'll see the players at bats in more detail.

Remembering the Strike of 1994

2007-08-12T11:09:00.001-04:00

+ Its been 13 years since the strike that ended the 1994 season. August 12, 1994. My Expos were 74-40. First place by 6 games and they were only getting better.

Alou, Walker, Grissom, Cordero, Martinez, Hill, Wetteland, Rojas, Fassero, Lansing, Floyd.

Expos fans across the world, please bow your heads with me in remembrance of this great team and what could have been.

Here is all you need to know about the Montreal Expos and why they are no longer in Montreal.

In 1995, when the strike finally ended, the Expos did not re-sign Larry Walker or John Wetteland and they traded Marquis Grissom and Ken Hill. Their 4 best players.

It was later revealed by Walker and confirmed by others in that group that the 4 players (might have been only 3 of them, not sure) got together and offered themselves to the Expos at a discount so that the team could stay together and contend in 1995. The Expos management declined and so it was decided in this city that management did not care about this team, its fans or baseball in general.

It became very difficult to cheer for the Expos from that point forward. Most anyone who was a fan at some point can pinpoint 1994 as the season they stopped becoming a fan.

Montreal can support a baseball team and I hope someday that they will again. All they need is a good ownership group. I'm not just biased because I'm a Montrealer. I lived it. I see how the Cubs can be mediocre year after year and nobody talks about them moving because they try to win. Its when a team stops trying that the fans stop trying. Maybe one day you will understand.

The Rick Ankiel Story. Starring...

2007-08-10T16:14:00.000-04:00

+ I wonder who will play the part of Rick Ankiel in The Rick Ankiel Story. Normally, the front-runner for any baseball movie is Kevin Costner but he might not be believable as a 28 year-old. Any ideas?

I've heard a lot of people comparing Ankiel to Babe Ruth and Brooks Kieschnick and if I'm Ron Mahay, I'm freaking ticked off for getting no recognition and no love.

Regardless of who plays Ankiel in his movie, Amanda Peet absolutely must play his wife Lory.

Its been a long time since I looked at a boxscore and smiled, but this morning, when I saw Ankiel had homered in his first game and helped the Cardinals to victory, I grinned just a little.

+ Tony Gwynn owned Greg Maddux. 83 plate appearances and guess how many strikeouts?

+ I found this interesting concerning the Dodgers and Giants and their deal for Mark Sweeney.

Relatives Playing Together on Same team

2007-08-10T09:38:00.000-04:00

+ The number of lists I have on the site is now up to 47. Here are the latest:

+ Players on 9 or more MLB Teams
» Retired Numbers
» Home Run Derby Participants
» 4 Home Runs in a Game
» Relatives Playing Together on Same team

Projects Update

+ Its been a slow week in project development since my local MySql database exploded into a million pieces. A power failure while I was loading data into the database caused catastropic errors when the machine was rebooted. I scoured the Internet for help on ways to get my data back but apparently I was the only one in the world who had ever had this error. Long story short, I've been working all week to rebuild the database and this time, saving all my scripts and datasets into a singular location for a quick rebuild next time this happens. And it will.

And so any project that was making good progress at the beginning of the week had been delayed. But as we speak, I am building pages for each Major League Baseball Player since 1957 that includes all opposing batters or pitchers that he faced during his career. It will be career totals for each matchup (minus 1999) and will link directly to the Head 2 Head module where you will see the detail.

I've also been working on an improved Baseball Card Module, 2007 College Baseball Statistics and 2006 Japanese baseball statistics, all the while churning out baseball lists.

Hell-Bent on Interstellar Domination

2007-08-09T07:43:00.000-04:00

+ A blurb about TBC over at Most Valuable Network. The first line made me chuckle.

The Baseball Cube, seemingly hell-bent on interstellar domination, recently added current-year statistics to their ever-growing database, for both the majors and the minors. You can also now search many more things, including a search of matchup stats simply by typing in “HITTER NAME vs PITCHER NAME”. It’s amazing, really.

Some days it does seem like I am trying to take over the world.

Speaking of working hard
+ More Baseball Lists Added Today:

» Pitchers who struck out the side on 9 straight pitches.
» Toughest Players to Strike Out
» Toughest Players to Walk
» Unassisted Triple Plays
» HR Leaders by state, province or country
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+ I will be taking a break from my interstellar domination in about 6 weeks. Along with my wife, my 4-year old Yankee Fan, my 3-year old athletic phenom and some friends, we'll be vacationing at Disney World and then we'll be on a 5-day cruise to the Bahamas while praying that hurricane season takes a break this year. My wife, the ultimate vacation planner, has managed to get us a free dining plan which means we each eat 2 meals a day for free at Disney (if you're staying on site). Its a limited offer and is only available in 2-3 week periods during off-peak seasons. Word on the street (er, the Disney forums) is that this is not going to be available next year.