Sunday links: Players we’ve lost, stories you may have missed in 2024

The Hosken Powell Memorial Link Dump lives on, as does Hosken Powell.

Hiya, folks! Just thought I’d stop in with some recent links… and also to clear out some of the notes to stories I never got around to mentioning this season.

The recently departed Luis Tiant didn’t play for the Twins very long, but most people who knew the guy, loved the guy. We looked at him back in August; the dude had STYLE. And I can’t encourage watching this video enough. Most of the full film is in Spanish, but I’ve cued it up to a powerful segment in English. (Tiant uses the words bigots said to him, and they are hideous words.) The great Chris Cooper does narration:

Bud Harrelson, who died in January, never played for the Twins at all. But he did once completely wail the heck out of the late Pete Rose, which I approve. And he was a part owner of the Long Island Ducks, the team that became Lewwwww Ford’s second home.

One of baseball’s recent pioneers, Billy Bean, passed away at age 60. He was the second MLB player to come out as gay (a strong Wiki entry by itself), and worked with the league to encourage more inclusivity (in the way teams treat fans, at least – gods forbid players be less closed-minded, or the Rangers owners).

Rest in pieces, Rays’ roof:

(The stadium was going to be used as a place for first responders to crash; fortunately these cots were all moved. Since Rob Manfred wasn’t in charge.)

There were lots of stories about the last days of the A’s in Oakland. This one, by Ellen Cushing, was by far the best. If you read one link today, read this. This is really personal and touching.

Who doesn’t like ads on jerseys? Those shoulder patches that used to honor a team anniversary or recently deceased person, now they bring teams more MONEY! I can’t wait until team names are replaced with corporate logos, like in soccer. Anyways, this article lists every sponsored jersey patch for 2024 (there’s 22 of ‘em). As you’d guess, the top sponsors are finance companies, with energy companies and tech right behind. There’s some grocery store and convenience store chains, two construction-materials companies, and a special rung in hell for the Phillies pimping a murderous “health insurance” corporation. (So does the soccer team in St. Paul.)

(Oddly, the Dodgers have a patch for “Guggenheim Baseball Management,” a company that… owns the Dodgers. That’s all they do. So, taking ad money from yourself? OK!)

Remember Pat Venditte? The guy who could pitch with either arm? Well, the Mariners have a guy like that in their system. And yes, he’s talked to Venditte.

Back in March, reigning Cy Young winner Blake Snell was sitting around, waiting for some team to give him an offer. It wasn’t until March 19^th that the Giants finally did… and Snell was terrific for them this year. Former Twin Kyle Lohse talked to Bob Nightengale about going through something similar, and how “qualifying offers” suck.

Lohse retired in 2018, and Alex Remington wrote a nice summation of his quality career.

Here’s an odd statistic about Zack Greinke.

From Noah Woodward’s Substack (where all the cool kids play), a breakdown of the newest swing-analysis tool. No, I don’t get it, but you might. If you’re a NERD.

Twins minor-leaguer Matt Canterino plays Settlers Of Catan. And got a bunch of other Twins into it. So THAT’S why the team collapsed in September.

The White Sox’s season-long collapse was SO bad, their Twitter account stopped giving scores, and instead put up stuff that made them laugh:

This is the NYT on watching games with angry Sox fans. They are angry.

Here’s a nice, short Park article about Simeon Woods-Richardson starting against Triston McKenzie in May, and how rare it is to see two Black starting pitchers. (I don’t remember the recap of that game, but I remember the intro…)

Several years ago, Baseball-Reference decided to include the most reliable Negro League records as MLB records; the league soon followed this example. This year, MLB revamped its official leaderboards to reflect this change. As usual, idiots and those who profit from Loud Whining made their noise.

Of the anti-inclusion voices, the most interesting was Malcolm Ferguson; he argued that Negro Leagues records shouldn’t be included – and neither should any pre-1947 records. So no Ty Cobb, no Honus Wagner – the best hitters would now be Ted Williams and Tony Gwynn. I’m not sure I agree, but that’s a thoughtful way to look at it.

Here’s ex-Phillies outfielder Doug Glanville on what those stats’ inclusion means to him. And here’s B-Ref’s page with tons of links explaining how they went about determining which stats to include, and what gaps in the history still exist.

The wonderful Al Yellon at BCB explaining why he doesn’t think baseball should share more TV rights money among teams. I think Al’s wrong here, but he makes his case intelligently, as always.

FYI, baseball owners… movie audiences might not ever come back to the level they once were, so losing audiences could DEFINITELY happen to sports.

Pat Borzi wrote a solid rundown of the multiple reasons the Twins are losing audiences.

By the way… a rough tally of team payrolls for the last 10 seasons has the Twins averaging about 18th or 19th in MLB. What size baseball market is the MSP metro? About 18th or 19th (keep in mind there’s two teams in NY, LA, Chicago, the Bay Area). So while I’m as glad as anyone that Joe Pohlad might not be running things much longer, I don’t think the Twins are gonna suddenly start spending like a hedge fund inside trader.

A Silicon Valley investment firm now owns over 25% of MiLB teams (including the Saints). Worth keeping an eye on. It seems they’ve already banked $275 mil in tax freebies.

Royce Lewis talked with MLB.com’s Bill Ladson about how Torii Hunter and Matt Kemp have been helpful mentors. Oh, and about how Royce’s dad owns a restaurant. It’s one of those restaurants with no prices on the menu, so if you go there, you are rich and we aren’t friends.

Defector with yet another article about how much more fun it is to watch Japanese baseball. I mean, yeah, that sounds GREAT, but I’ll never be able to afford travel to Japan. So these articles depress me. Still, umbrella dance:

Some Korean players visited America. Not unusual, right? Except these were North Korean players! Who defected to South Korea. Helen Sullivan of The Guardian looked at what we can discover about baseball in North Korea.

Some not-baseball:

The Lynx are back in the WNBA Finals for the first time since winning in 2017. Today’s Game 2 is on ABC at 2 PM; the rest are on ESPN (schedule + analysis here). Minnesota’s big star is forward Napheesa Collier, one of the league’s top scorers and defenders. When the Lynx won the title in 2016, they partied at Prince’s house. Well, we always knew Prince could ball.

This is is a good Guardian article about the memories of a lifelong hockey minor-leaguer. Very Bull Durham-ish, or Slap Shot.

This is years ago, but here’s another Guardian story about how Elton John bought a minor-league soccer team, and loved it, and they loved him. I mean, the Twins loved Elton, too.

Finally…

Older residents of downtown St. Paul might remember Alary’s Bar, near 7^th & Robert. It was notably a Chicago Bears bar, so why go? Well, for one, I lived nearby. For another, I got to know the owner, Al Baisi, a Bears player (and two-time Pro Bowler) from the 1940s. He was originally from West Virginia, and his brother was a well-loved basketball coach there.

Al was a character, man. He was permanently blinded when he ran a strip joint in St. Paul and some angry customer shotgunned him in the face, probably over a gal. (Here’s some historic photos of the old Alary’s locations, and a story about the 7^th Street spot’s fun/unsavory sides… Al’s son was kind of a creep.)

Al would come in almost every night, around 11:30 or so, on a Metro Mobility bus. And, if you were willing to listen to his various stories (mostly about women, and mostly PG-13), he’d buy you beer. I didn’t like taking advantage of his generosity, so I’d only hit him up for beer when I was with a lady friend. He preferred my lady friends. One went with me to visit Al in the hospital when he was dying, which he seemed to enjoy.

Alary’s closed a few years ago, as many things did. But it’s back open now, and still a Bears bar. (Also still a cop bar, which it always was. I mean, Al was a Chicago guy, and had been shot by a criminal, so I get it.)

The funny thing? The new owner, a former Chicago resident, also owns Camp, which is a short walk away. Why two bars in the same location? Won’t they compete? Well, Camp was primarily a LGTBQ-friendly bar, and Alary’s a sports bar. Not that I haven’t watched Twins games at Camp, or met gay people at Alary’s… just that there’s room to own both! (Even if Camp seems to be more of a comedy club, now. Hey, we love amateur standups as much as anyone else.)

And heck, one more fun thing. Remember trade deadline pickup Trevor Richards? If you don’t, it’s because he played like this:

Well, that’s me emptying some of my notes from this season. See ya soon, maybe! We haven’t even gotten to MLB Stadium Shenanigans yet, and there’s always more of those!