Batting champs

On June 11, 2005 (my 23rd wedding anniversary), Rob Mackowiak was hitting .358, and the Pirates utility player finally had compiled enough at-bats to qualify for the National League batting race.

His hot start had helped Pittsburgh to a 31-31 record, which was a big deal in a town where .500 baseball sounds like the Promised Land. Perhaps, some long-suffering Pirates fans though, their team finally was turning the corner, thanks to guys like Mackowiak.

June 12 was a sunny Sunday at PNC Park, a great day for baseball, as they say. The Pirates were wrapping up a three-game series vs. Tampa Bay, looking for the sweep after an 18-2 rout Saturday night. A warm cheer rose from the stands as the scoreboard listed the batting leaders, Rob Mackowiak officially among them.

He proceeded to go 0-for-5 in Pittsburgh's loss to the Devil Rays, dropping his average by nine points. The Pirates then embarked on a road trip to face other AL East teams, the Yankees (who, after a decade of interleague play, have yet to visit Pittsburgh) and the Red Sox. The Pirates dropped five out of six on the trip and had yet to reach .500 again until beating Houston in this season's opener. Mackowiak managed a total of one hit in New York and Boston, watching his batting average plunge 39 points in a week. He was below .300 by July 2, finished at .272 and was shipped to the White Sox after the season.

With the precedent set of a Pirates utility player tearing it up at the start of the season, some fans were skeptical when Freddy Sanchez followed Mackowiak's lead early in 2006. True, Sanchez had showed some promise by hitting .291 the previous season. But few folks expected him to keep it up when his '06 average rose to .358 at the start of June. That's exactly where Mackowiak had peaked the year before.

Of course, Freddy proved the doubters wrong, staying consistent enough to lead the league at .344, giving Pirates fans one of their few thrills since the days of Bonds and Bonilla.

Although posting the highest batting average doesn't carry the clout it once did -- everyone looks at home runs nowadays -- it still is quite a feat, and most of the National League leaders of the past three or so decades have been established stars: Gwynn, Bonds, Pujols, Larry Walker, Willie McGee, Bill Madlock and the like. You'd have to go back to 1974 (Ralph Garr, Atlanta, .353) to find an NL batting champ who's faded into the obscurity of baseball annals. But even Garr had posted some decent numbers for the Braves for a couple of seasons before topping the field.

Before Sanchez, probably the most unexpected NL batting champion was another member of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Mateo "Matty" Alou was one of the three Alou brothers on the San Francisco Giants in the early '60s, along with Felipe and Jesus. Matty had shown flashes of potential, but when his batting average tailed off to .231 in part-time outfield duty in 1965, he was shipped to the Pirates for a couple of warm bodies named Ozzie Virgil and Joe Gibbon.

Under the tutelage of Pirate manager Harry "The Hat" Walker, Alou upped his average to .342 in 1966, besting Felipe by 15 points in the only batting race featuring brothers finishing 1-2. Interestingly, the league's MVP that year was Roberto Clemente (.317), his only such award even though he won batting titles in four other seasons.

Walker knew something about unexpected batting champs. In 1946, playing for the World Series-winning St. Louis Cardinals, he hit .237. His average early in 1947 was .200, and the Cards packed him off to the Phillies, a team that had registered exactly one above-.500 season since 1917. Walker gave Philadelphia a rare reason to celebrate by batting .371 the rest of the way, finishing at .363 and leading the league by 46 points. He never had another season remotely approaching those numbers.

Will Freddy Sanchez at least be respectable compared with last season? He comes off the disabled list this weekend, and we'll see if he can do a Dave Parker (last Pirate to win back-to-back batting titles).

Freddy already has shown he's no Rob Mackowiak.

Trivia question 10: The 1991 American League batting champion still is active in the majors. Who is he?

A night to remember

The older you get, the more you say things like: "I can't remember what happened last week, but I remember (fill in the blank) like it was yesterday."

I usually fill in that blank with the events of April 8, 1974, at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. Henry Aaron had tied Babe Ruth's career home run record a few days before, and a fortuitous set of circumstances allowed the Braves' home opener against Los Angeles to be broadcast on ABC's Monday Night Baseball, allowing the whole nation to see history in the making. Remember, this was long before ESPN was around to cut into the middle of the game each time Aaron strode to the plate.

I can clearly picture Aaron getting ahold of an Al Downing pitch and driving it over the fence in left-center field; the fishing net coming down from the stands in an unsuccessful attempt to land the historic ball (Braves reliever Tom House ended up with it); the two young men running out of the crowd to pat Henry on the back between second and third bases; and the long interruption of the game for all the accolades from baseball bigwigs.

That was really 33 years ago?

Last night, Barry Bonds hit another home run on his quest to pass Aaron's record. That concept used to bother me, for all the reasons it bothers most other baseball fans outside of San Francisco.

But why should I care? Bonds is playing in an era when everything seems to be done toward maximizing the potential for balls to fly out of the park. If you don't believe me, compare pitching numbers during Aaron's heyday, particularly the mid-'60s, with the abysmal mound performances of the past dozen or so years.

Bonds does deserve plenty of credit for taking most advantage of the conditions that have been favorable to home run hitters, coming out on top of the pack that includes the likes of Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro.

But I don't plan to be watching when Aaron's record falls. I don't need visions of Barry Bonds in my head for the next 33 years.

"Oh, say, can you see ..."

Francis Scott Key's greatest hit has been an institution at baseball games since a band on hand at Fenway Park in the 1918 World Series broke into an impromptu version.

Jimi Hendrix borrowed the concept to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" on electric guitar, complete with squealing feedback accompanying "the bombs bursting in air," at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival in 1969.

While Jimi never was invited to perform the anthem prior to a ballgame, some of his fellow performers at Woodstock were, almost a quarter of a century after the fact.




In April 1993, some members of the Grateful Dead -- founders Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, along with latter-day keyboard player Vince Welnick -- sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" to open a Giants game at Candlestick Park, in the Dead's hometown of San Francisco. They might not have gotten the response of, say, Whitney Houston at the 1991 Super Bowl, but the members of the band acquitted themselves quite while, according to Grateful Dead fans in attendance.

Unfortunately, neither Jerry nor Vince are with us anymore. RIP.

This photo appeared in "Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip," published by DK Publishing Inc., New York City. The photo was taken by Jay Blakesberg, Jay Blakeberg Photography.

Trivia question 9: What National League team finished second five years in a row in the 1960s, despite having six future Hall of Famers at various times during that stretch?

Gimme some K's

I'm one of those baseball fans who prefers watching pitchers racking up strikeouts to batters belting the horsehide all over the park. Maybe it's because I couldn't hit the darn thing when I was a kid.

At any rate, I was enjoying tonight's Pirates game, watching Ian Snell work his way through the Houston lineup. After five innings, Snell had fanned 10, given up only two hits and walked none. Unfortunately, one of those hits was a Jason Lane home run to the short left-field porch at Minute Maid Park, and the score was tied, 1-1.

Snell wasn't quite as sharp in the sixth, surrending a bloop single (or Texas Leaguer, if you will) to a struggling Carlos Lee, bringing in the go-ahead run for Houston. Still, Ian upped his strikeout total to a career-high 11.

His reward? With two outs in the top of the seventh, he was out of the game. Pittsburgh manager Jim Tracy sent Nate McClouth up to pinch-hit for Snell, even though McClouth probably burned up his pinch-hitting karma for the year with his home run last night. Nate promptly popped up to end the inning, something Snell very well could have done.

I left the TV for the computer when I saw journeyman John Wasdin come in for the Pirates and promptly get lit up a bit.

As you've probably gathered by reading some of these posts, I grew up in an era when starting pitchers still finished the game, particularly when they were blowing batters away. Now, I don't expect any of today's Pirates to throw 300 innings and 30 complete games -- they'd have Tracy committed if he tried anything like that -- but can't a guy have a go at, say, 14 or 15 strikeouts? You don't see anything like that anymore, particularly when it comes to the Pirates (although Oliver Perez whiffed 14 a few years ago, also against Houston, before they started messing with his delivery and ruined him for the time being).

I'm not nearly the fan I used to be, and watching what Tracy did in tonight's game reminds me why.

Trivia question 8: What pitcher struck out the most batters in a Major League game?

Coming back

The Pirates' comeback against Houston last night for a season-opening 4-2 victory reminded me, in a way, of another game against the Astros.

I was driving home on the afternoon of July 28, 2001, listening on the radio to the Pirates getting crushed in the first game of a doubleheader. Four runs in the eighth and ninth off Pittsburgh reliever Omar Olivares put the Astros up 8-2, and with two quick outs in the bottom half of the inning, everyone involved started getting ready for the day's second game.

Then Kevin Young doubled and Pat Meares hit what probably was his last home run as a Pirate. Adam Hyzdu singled. Tike Redman walked, and Jack Wilson singled to score Hyzdu.

At that point, the Astros brought in relief ace Billy Wagner, who promptly hit Jason Kendall (a perennial leader in that category) to load the bases and bring the potential winning run to the plate.

The hitter was Brian Giles, who happened to be the Pirates' All-Star representative in '01. He showed why by belting the ball into the PNC Park stands for one of the rare instances of an "ultimate grand slam" (a bases-loaded home run to win a game by one run).

Giles' home run came just as I was pulling into the driveway, and I remember running into the house to tell whomever.

When Jason Bay's 10th-inning homer won it for the Pirates last night, I had pretty much dozed off on the couch, and I went to bed shortly afterward.

Well, overcoming a 2-0 deficit isn't exactly like winning after trailing by six. Plus, I'm almost six years older now!

Feats of pitching

I received an e-mail from Joe Agnello, who works for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and shares my interests in subjects like baseball and good rock music of the '60s and '70s.

Here's part of what Joe wrote:

"A couple years ago I went hunting for pitchers who threw at least 300 innings in a given season and, for the same season, recorded an ERA under 2.00. What would a pitcher who could do that be worth today? In fact, you can’t find any two pitchers (probably not even three) on any team whose combined stats would measure up to that. Near as I could tell, it’s been done seven times since 1950. Incredibly, Sandy Koufax did it twice and almost did it a third time. Former Bucco Wilbur Wood did it with the Chisox of the early 1970s. Wood TWICE won 20 games and lost 20 games in the same season. You talk about an innings eater!

"By the way, among the pre-1950 accomplishers of these freak stats was one George Herman Ruth with the Bosox. Bring that up the next time someone proclaims Barry Bonds as the greatest player of all time."

Interesting stuff, Joe. Here is a complete list of the pitchers with the criteria he cites since 1950:

Sandy Koufax, 1963, 311 innings, 1.88 ERA
Sandy Koufax, 1966, 323 innings, 1.73 ERA
Bob Gibson, 1968, 305 innings, 1.12 ERA
Denny McLain, 1968, 336 innings, 1.96 ERA
Wilbur Wood, 1971, 334 innings, 1.91 ERA
Vida Blue, 1971, 312 innings, 1.82 ERA
Steve Carlton, 1972, 346 innings, 1.97 ERA
Gaylord Perry, 1972 , 343 innings, 1.92 ERA

That actually adds up to eight pitchers, and as Joe says, Koufax just barely missed a third time, posting an ERA of 2.04 in 336 innings in 1965.

A couple of notes:

• Some revisionists have tended to downgrade Koufax's accomplishments, citing his home park, Dodgers Stadium, as having highly unfavorable conditions for hitters. Plus, before the height of the pitcher's mound was standardized, Dodger pitchers allegedly were a couple of feet above the batters. Whatever the case, no other Dodger starter posted anything comparing to Koufax's numbers, and that staff included two other Hall of Famers, the Dons Drysdale and Sutton.

• Gibson and McLain, of course, were the brightest stars in the Year of the Pitcher, when offensive statistics dwindled to the point where the Yankees compiled a .214 team batting average. The baseball powers that be promptly put rules in place to give the hitters a better shot. It worked, at least for a few years.

• I remember watching Vida Blue pitch to Willie Mays, the first batter in the '71 All-Star Game. Willie was 40 by then, and the consensus is that he never saw any of the pitches before walking back to the bench after striking out. He heard them, maybe. Blue was 17-2 heading into the game and was baseball's biggest story, similar to Fernando Valenzuela 10 years later. But he held out prior to 1972 and slumped to 6-10. Although he had a few decent years for Oakland and later across the bay in San Francisco, he never again approached the status he held in mid-'71.

• Baseball history stats guru Bill James cites Wood's 1971 performance as being even better than Blue's. Wood, a knuckleballer, had led the American League in appearances as a reliever in 1970, but his White Sox posted the worst record in the majors by a long shot, so they figured they had nothing to lose by converting Wood to a starter. In 1972, Wood hurled 377 innings, and in 1973, he started both games of a doubleheader.

• There isn't enough hyperbole for Carlton's 1972 season. We'll take a closer look at that later.

• Perry is remembered today mainly because he admitted to -- bragged is more like it -- throwing the spitball, which has more or less been outlawed since 1920. He won 24 games in 1972 for a Cleveland team that won only 72 games and scored just 472 runs. With a little bit of offensive support, Gaylord might have been the last 30-game winner, instead of McLain.

• Look up Babe Ruth's pitching numbers any time you want to debate who was the greatest player of all time.

Trivia question 7: The American League's offensive statistics in 1972 were almost as dire as in '68, the Year of the Pitcher. What rule change was instituted in '73 to beef up batters' numbers?

Rotisserie next day

Don't ask ...

Let's just hope that a lot of rookie phenoms get hot and stay that way. Otherwise, it's going to be a long season.

Trivia question 6: Who was the last major league pitcher (and there in all likelihood to never be another one) to throw 300-plus innings in one season? (Hints: It occurred the same year as Question 5 and by a pitcher who is referred to on this page.)