Jaybird's Jottings

StoryCorps

“I've lost the flavor and taste and sound of it. I just want to look and listen." – John Steinbeck, in a letter to a friend in 1959.

“StoryCorps is a national initiative to instruct and inspire Americans to record one another’s stories in sound… It has the potential to become one of the largest documentary oral history projects ever donated to the Library of Congress, and it will be one of the first “born-digital” collections to come to the American Folklife Center.” Press release from The Library of Congress.

In 1960, John Steinbeck, wanting to see more of the United States, set out on a tour of the country. He had a special cabin mounted on the back of his truck. In went his needs and Charley, his beloved poodle. 10,000 miles later, Steinbeck wrote about his experiences in Travels With Charley.

Some 45 years later, David Isay started something similar. He founded StoryCorps, an ambitious oral history project that “seeks out ordinary Americans, the people who rarely make it into the pages of history textbooks.”

The effort began last May when two MobileBooths toured the country and recorded “the stories of everyday Americans.” The tour continues with another cross-country trek to more towns and cities.

I had heard about this project before but learned more about it this weekend. Having just finished a Saturday morning session at the Library of Congress’ microfilm reading room, I walked out of the Madison Building and headed towards my car. There at the corner of Independence Avenue and Second Street I saw a small travel trailer. On the side were the words StoryCorps.

I walked up and met Valda and Judy, two very friendly people who work for the American Folklife Center. They were passing out literature about the StoryCorps project and telling curious passerbys more about the on-going effort. I learned from Valda that the American Folklife Center will maintain the recordings. We agreed the project is a wonderful thing and that our senior citizens would especially love and appreciate having someone ask them to tell their stories.

Be sure to check out the MobileBooth's blogs and think about participating.

Also see:

Veterans History Project

Save Our Sounds

Bonds Hits 715

Aaron, Bonds, Ruth. Congratulations to Barry for 715. History will record it came on a blue sky Sunday afternoon in San Francisco and he hit it at 5:14 EST (Right before dinner prep!). ESPN cut in and I was happy I didn’t miss it.

Sure glad he didn’t do it on Saturday. Once again, ESPN covered all of Bonds's plate appearances except on that day.

Inflated Attendance Figures

Somewhere in the past few decades, the notion of attendance has been skewed by many teams and leagues to mean something entirely different. Most often it represents total tickets sold or total tickets distributed, no matter if people actually used them – a sort of best-case scenario projection, the intersection of capitalism and wishful thinking. – Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union Tribune.

If I could go back in time, and rewrite some of the things I have written on baseball, one thing I would probably change is the way I talk about attendance. Instead of saying something like, “24,535 watched the game,” I would try and come up with a better way to deal with the assumption that the figure given is indeed attendance.

Attendance figures in the early days were provided by the magnates. No doubt there were abuses. The situation seemed to get better but starting in 1994, MLB turned back the clocks to bad the ol’ days of inflated numbers. Instead of the actual fanny counts, MLB provided tickets sold.

Prior to 1994, the National League reported actual attendance while the American League gave out the tickets sold figure. But after reading Zeigler's article and what I've learned elsewhere about the subject, I have to wonder if the NL's figures were actual turnstile attendance.

Zeigler did a nice job. It’s an excellent article and demonstrates that in some cases, the inflation goes beyond tickets sold.

I don’t know if anything can be done about MLB's policy, but one idea is something similar to what Bill James did in the 80s. He asked MLB for the play by play information on the games. They said no.

James then organized Project Scoresheet. He got a bunch of volunteers around the country to keep score of the games. Seeing what was happening, MLB eventually gave in and started providing the info.

Tracking attendance would be a guessing game, but volunteers could come up with educated estimates. Or at least note occasions where the given figure is way off.

Roger Angell Looks Back

“Our stories about our own lives are a form of fiction, I began to see, and become more insistent as we grow older, even as we try to make them come out in some other way.” – Roger Angell, Introduction, Let Me Finish.

Roger Angell is not only a great essayist, one of baseball’s best, he’s an avid fan of the game. 85 and still working and rooting, Angell’s childhood teams were the Yankees and the Giants. In interviews, he’s spoken about them, but to my knowledge, he's never recounted anything more than a glimpse here and there.

That yearning is now satisified with the release of his latest book, a set of life stories entitled Let Me Finish.

I started with Early Innings, his baseball chapter. I especially loved learning what newspapers and writers he read as a kid growing up in New York City, his abilities as a pitcher and his descriptions and memories of the Polo Grounds. For the 1933 World Series, Angell "rushed home from school" and listened to the four weekday games on the radio. When father came home from work, son gave dad the play by play. They also went to the games. Angell said he enjoyed the Polo Grounds more than “the stadium” across the river.

Other aspects of the book that I enjoyed reading were Angell’s Air Force (Army Air Corp) days (we both got our technical training at Lowry in Denver) and learning about his work at The New Yorker (His first article was published in 1944). He’s been there, by his count, “10,000 mornings.”

The only criticism I have of the book is there’s no index (amazon.com has the “search inside” for it) and no pictures. Otherwise, a fine memoir from one of our best.

Barry Joins The Babe

He finally did it.

After a journey of about two weeks, Barry Bonds joined Babe Ruth yesterday with his 714th home run. The Giants darn near ruined the thing but rallied in the tenth for a 4-2 win at Oakland.

For a Giants fan like myself, living three time zones away and not having Major League Baseball Extra Innings or anything like it, it’s been quite an interesting experience tracking each of Bonds’s plate appearances.

After Bonds hit 712 at home on Tuesday, May 2nd, the Giants headed east for three game series in Milwaukee and Philadelphia. The Sunday game at Philly on May 7th was broadcast on ESPN. This time frame maximized the audience with the national broadcast and the Sunday night slot. Barry came through with a long blast for 713 in a 9-5 loss.

The Giants flew home for a make up game versus Houston (Bonds rested), followed by three against the Cubs and a weekend set versus the Dodgers. I tried to stay up late on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Five years ago I had done so on that Friday night at Pac Bell when Bonds hit homers 71 and 72. I’m not a spring chicken anymore, so I had to get my beauty sleep. As it turned out, Bonds came close on Tuesday night but was robbed by Chicago’s swift centerfielder Juan Pierre.

Thursday (May 11) was my kind of day. A 3:30 pm EST start and the game covered by WGN. I wasn’t sure if Bonds would play. He’s known to rest in day games like that. But when I got home from work, there he was in the lineup.

I missed his first at bat but watched the rest of the game. I fondly recalled when WGN was a way to see the Giants on TV when there were few other options for the "Beyond the Bay" set. In the 80s, when I was stationed in North Carolina, quitting time was 4:30. If the Giants were playing the Cubs, I would hightail it home and catch most of the game.

Call it wishful thinking, but it seemed to me that Barry was going to do it this day. He had a knack for hitting the milestone homers at home but nothing doing for a trot shot. The Giants did get a much needed 9 to 3 romp over the Cubbies. Bonds went oh for three, dropping his batting average to 240. That’s a batting average slump but his OBP stayed in the 490s and he was still slugging over 500.

Next up was the Dodgers on Friday night. Human does not live on baseball alone (although we sometimes try!) so I was in la-la land when Barry got in his cuts. When I woke up on Saturday morning, I was prepared to be happy if he hit 714 even though I would have missed it. The Giants had celebrated Willie’s 75th birthday before the game and the home fans would have gotten to see 714 at their normal hours. But Bonds came up short again.

On Saturday my wife and I went to the movies and made it back in time for the start of the game (4 pm EST). My modus operandi, one I had used in previous chases, was to hop on line, see when Barry was coming up, and then run into the living room for ESPN’s live cut-in.

I allowed myself enough time but got thrown a curveball when I couldn’t connect to the GameDay board at the Giants site. I scrambled over to espn.com’s similar tracking board. Barry, batting third for the first time since who could remember when, was coming up. When I checked ESPN on the TV, they were not cutting in as they had done before for the games in Milwaukee.

Running back into the computer room, I remembered that mlb.com had a Watch It Live link (BaseballChannel.tv). I clicked on it and they had cut in from their talk show programming. For Bonds’s first at bat, the audio did not kick in until the count was 2 and 2.

I had barbeque duties to attend to so I squeezed them in between Bonds’s at bats. At one point, as I was scurrying in and out of the house and running up and down the stairs, I thought to myself, this is crazy. I should just forget about trying to see the moment live and get on with normal life stuff. But this was 714, Ruth, tremendous baseball history. I wanted to see it as it happened.

Hitless, Bonds came to the plate in the eighth inning. The sold out crowd stood as one and cheered but The Mighty Barry grounded out. I have to admit I missed the great rally in the ninth. By that point, I was sitting at the table enjoying our dinner and wasn’t going to move an inch.

On Sunday, right before the game (4 EST), we got hit with some afternoon thunderstorms. I normally turn the computer off when they get close but decided to take a chance. GameDay at the Giants site was once again not letting me in and neither was espn scoreboard. I quickly went to AOL’s Scorecast. When Bonds came up, I went to the mlb.com’s BaseballChannel.tv and they showed Vizquel’s at bat. I almost didn’t bother with checking the TV but I did.

ESPN was back to doing the live cut-in so I watched it there. The better half has understood my passion during all this but things got interesting during one of my runs into the living room. She was watching the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. Uh-oh.

The game was same ol’, same ol’ for Bonds. In front of a regular-season daytime record crowd of 42,984, he either didn’t get pitches to hit or he didn’t sock one long enough. The Monday papers talked about his 1 for 18 slump but it might just be the greatest slump in the history of the game. Count the 8 walks Bonds got and it’s not so bad.

But of course, the tater was the thing. And Bonds was not his normal powerful self. For all of his previous milestones, Bonds rarely kept the fans waiting beyond a handful of games. This season, however, the 41-year old star slugger has the bum knee. Even so, it seemed like he could hit one circuit shot on the home stand. But he didn’t and it was back on the road.

Monday, May 15. Houston. This is the city where Willie Mays hit home runs 500 and 501 on consecutive nights in the Astrodome in September 1965 and where Bonds helped his team win a critical sweep over the Astros in late September 2001 with 8 walks and his 70th home run of the year to tie Mark McGwire’s record.

I thought Bonds would take this game off but a note at the Giants’ official site said he would be in the lineup. I went on-line at 8:05 pm. Bonds had a double and a walk but no 714. The Giants won big with Pedro Feliz hitting that grand slam (Bonds walked and scored). Bonds was frustrated again by pitches outside the zone as well as a couple of borderline pitches going against him.

Tuesday Night, Game Two. The Giants continued to scald the ball, scoring a five spot in the first and fourth. Bonds kept me on my toes with six plate appearances before resting in the sixth. His last at bat came right at 9 pm so you just know the ESPN producers were challenged by that. No doubt, too, that if you did not care to watch Bonds try and catch the Babe, and were watching a lot of ESPN, you were, by now, sick of the cut ins and the panel talk that followed each at bat.

Bonds had a good night with two hits and a walk. In his second at bat, he hit a fly ball out to right that took a trajectory that looked like it had a chance. I got on my feet but was left standing.

Bonds rested on Wednesday night (Giants won for the sweep) and the team had Thursday off. Friday night’s games in Oakland posed the challenge once again of staying up past my normal bedtime of 10 pm. An early riser, I was a little tired and did not stay up. I got lucky as Bonds didn’t get a homer.

Saturday, May 20.

Bonds’s plate appearance count was up to something like 40. In his MLB article, Barry Bloom noted that the writing corps was thinning out.

“And as the Giants have traveled from San Francisco to Houston and back to Oakland, the national media members covering this death march have been dropping like flies.”

My wife and I repeated last weekend’s schedule. An early afternoon movie and grilling for dinner. Before I fired up the grill, I checked his first at bat. Remembering that ESPN had not done the live cut-in last Saturday, I made sure I was connected to MLB.com’s internet coverage. Sure enough, they saved the day. ESPN didn’t do a cut-in on either ESPN, ESPN 2 or ESPNEWS.

Running back into the computer like a madman, I barely caught it. 714 was a no-doubter, a beautiful, long-awaited sight into the right field seats. The better half came running in and helped me celebrate.

Barry had four chances for 715 but struck out, popped out and got four wide ones in the eighth and tenth.

Seeing 715, if it works out, will be special too. But something tells me I will always remember 714 the most.

Eruption: The Giants Highest Score per Inning

11 10 13 9 11 11 13 9 12

Under the banner of “Frivolous Fun” comes this fantastic line score for the Giants. I thought about such a thing watching a TV commercial the other day. To make a point, they took Jack Nicklaus’s best scores from each hole at The Masters and came up with a jaw-dropping round of 48.

That led me to wondering about the Giants and their highest score per inning. I contacted Dave Smith who was kind enough to provide me with the information. The New York Giants data is not yet completed so this is for SF.

First Inning, 11 Runs
June 29, 1967, Thursday Night at Busch Stadium
SF 12, STL 4
Attendance: 23,668
Winning Pitcher: Bolin
Losing Pitcher: Gibson

Notable:

Bob Gibson gave up 9 earned runs and did not last the inning.
Giants scored seven times before the first out.
Mays got two singles. Hart singled and homered and drove in four.
Bob Bolin pitched nine innings in relief and picked up the win.
Giants starter Gibbon was pulled after giving up two runs and getting no outs.

ML record (since 1900) for first inning – 15, Brooklyn, 1952 (This is also the NL record for any inning).

Second Inning, 10 Runs
September 23, 2003, Tuesday Night at Minute Maid Park
SF 10 HOU 0
Score before start of: 0-0
Att: 36,390
WP: Schmidt
LP: Miller

Notable:

Alfonzo hit a grand slam. Cruz doubled twice.
Schmidt ran his record to 17 and 5 and lowered his ERA to 2.35.
The win put the Astros a game behind the Cubs in their NL Central race and kept the Giants one game lead over the Braves for the league’s best record.

ML record (since 1900) for second inning – 13.

Third Inning, 13 Runs
May 7, 1966, Saturday Night at Busch Stadium
SF 15 STL 2
Score before start of: 0-0
Att: 15,369
WP: Marichal
LP: Art Mahaffey

Notable:

Set SF record for most runs in an inning. Tied franchise record.
Set modern day record for most runs in the third inning.

(Modern day NL record, for any inning, is 15 by Dodgers over Reds in 1952. Modern day ML record, for any inning, is 17 by Boston over Detroit in 1953).

Marichal went to 6 and 0.
Hal Lanier doubled and singled.
Marichal singled twice.
Cepeda hit grand slam.
Giants seventh win in a row.

Fourth Inning, 9 Runs
April 28, 2004, Wednesday Night at SBC Park (and two other times)
SF 10 ATL 7
Score before start of: ATL 2 SF 0
Attendance: 36,210
WP: Tomko
LP: Ortiz

Notable:

Feliz singled twice.

ML record (since 1900) for fourth inning – 14.

Fifth Inning, 11 Runs
July 8, 1970, Wednesday Night at Atlanta Stadium
SF 13, ATL 0
Score before start of: SF 2 ATL 0
Attendance: 10,629
WP: Perry
LP: Niekro

Notable:

Final six runs came with two out.
Hart, who had doubled in the second and singled in the third, homered and tripled in the inning to complete the cycle.

ML record (since 1900) for fifth inning – 14.

Sixth Inning, 11 Runs
May 21, 2000, Sunday at County Stadium
SF 16, MIL 10
Attendance: 20,571
Score before start of: SF 5 MIL 5
WP: Russ Ortiz
LP: Hector Ramirez

Notable:

Snow singled and homered.

ML record (since 1900) for sixth inning – 13 (Three teams. Montreal did it to Giants in 1997).

Seventh Inning, 13 Runs
July 15, 1997, Tuesday Night at Qualcomm Stadium
SF 16, SD 2
Score before start of: SF 3 SD 2
Attendance: 28,539
WP: Rueter
LP: Ashby

Notable:

Set NL (since 1900) record.
Tied SF record for most runs in an inning.
Javier singled twice.
Wilkins and Hamilton walked twice.
Benard batted for Bonds.

ML record (since 1900) for seventh inning – 17.

Eighth Inning, 9 Runs
July 1, 1973, Sunday at Atlanta Stadium
SF 14, ATL 6
Score before start of: ATL 6, SF 5
WP: Bryant
LP: Ron Schueler

Notable: Kingman ran for McCovey. Homered in second at bat. First game of a doubleheader.

ML record (since 1900) for eighth inning – 16.

Ninth Inning, 12 Runs
August 23, 1961, Wednesday night at Crosley Field
SF 14, CIN 0
Score before start of: SF 2 CIN 0
Attendance: 20,827
WP: Marichal
LP: Joey Jay

Notable:

12 runs set a modern day (since 1900) ML record for most runs in 9th inning. Broken by the Angels in 1978 (13).
Five home runs tied the ML record by 1939 Giants and the 1949 Phillies.
At one point, Jay had retired 19 straight Giants.
Win was their 13th of 15.
McCovey doubled and singled.
Cepeda, Alou, Davenport, Mays and Orsino homered.

10,6,2,"05-05-1998"
SF 8 FLA 2

11,6,1,"08-07-2001"
SF 9, CIN 3

12,6,1,"05-31-1976"
SF 7 LA 1

13,5,2,"03-31-1998"
SF 9 HOU 4

14,4,1,"07-08-1987"
SF 8 PIT 4

15,4,1,"05-02-1995"

16,2,1,"09-01-1958(2)"

17,3,1,"05-24-1998"

18,1,1,"06-11-1985"

21,1,1,"09-01-1967"

23,2,1,"05-31-1964(2)"

Note: My source for the NL and ML records for each inning is TSN 1998 Edition of the Complete Baseball Record Book.

Ruth Clouted Three For 714

“Here was a man with a special gift who broke all the rules with a flourish, triumphed grandly, and suffered a painful, early demise. But within his sadly truncated time span, he soared higher and drank deeper of life – dregs and all – than a hundred ordinary men combined.” Kal Wagenheim, Babe Ruth, His Life and Legend

With Barry knocking on The Babe’s door, I thought it would be interesting to do a quick look see at Ruth’s run up to his 714th homer.

After the Yankees let the Bambino go in February 1935, the Boston Braves signed the 40-year old slugger. The move was a return to the city where he played his first six seasons and hit his first 49 homers. He arrived back in Boston with 708.

On Opening Day, the Braves hosted the Giants. In front of a capacity crowd of 25,000, Ruth gave the fans what they wanted to see, a 430 foot homer off Carl Hubbell. The home team won 4-2.

On April 21st, Ruth hit his second home run of the year in a 8 to 1 loss to the Dodgers. A large crowd of 20,000 attended. Injured and tired, Ruth struggled from there. He knew his career was coming to an end but he played on. On May 21st he hit his third of the year at Wrigley in a 4-1 win over the Cubs.

On Saturday, May 25, the Pirates hosted the last place Braves. The Sultan of Swat entered the game hitting around a buck fifty. A crowd of 10,000 at Forbes Field watched Ruth hit three home runs to reach 714. According to the New York Times, his third blast “cleared over the right field grandstand, bounded into the street and rolled into Schenley Park.” The effort was wasted as the Braves lost 11-7.

On May 28, Ruth injured his leg and was taken out of the lineup. Two days later, he played one inning at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. In his only plate appearance, he hit a weak ground out. It would prove to be his last game.

At the end of May, the Braves hosted the Giants for a three game set. Ruth played none of the games. It was reported he had water on the knee and a cold.

On June 2nd, Ruth told reporters he was retiring. A few hours later, Braves’ owner Judge Fuchs announced that the ball club had given Ruth his unconditional release.

Happy 75th Willie!

Say Hey Willie turns 75 tomorrow. I thought it would be fun to see what he did throughout his career on his birthday.

1950

Debuted at Trenton on June 24.

1951

Toledo at Minneapolis Millers
Doubleheader
MIN 10 TOL 2
MIN 8 TOL 7
3 for 5
0 for 3

1952

STL 9 NY 4 at STL

4 0 0 0

Joined Army on May 29

1953

In Army

1954

CIN 5 NY 4 at Cincy

3 1 1 2 Two-Run Home Run

1955

4 0 2 0 Double (Ended an 0 for 16 slump).

1956

On his 25th birthday, the Giants played the Cardinals in a doubleheader at St Louis. Mays stole four bases. The last one helped ignite a rally. The Giants score two to win 5-4.

Game One

0 for 5

Game Two

2 for 2, 2 BB, 4 for 4 SB.

1957

CHI 6 NYG 2 at Polo Grounds

0 for 4

1958

SF 7 PIT 0 at Seals Stadium

3 1 2 1 1 SF 1 BB

1959

Willie had his birthday off as the Giants did not play.

1960

SF 5, PIT 1 at Candlestick

4 1 1 1, Home Run.

1961

Giants did not play.

1962

SF 7, CHI 3 at Wrigley

4 2 3 2 Double, Home Run

1963

Giants did not play.

1964

CUBS 4, SF 2 at Candlestick

4 0 2 0 Double

1965

Giants did not play.

1966

SF 4, STL 2 at STL

4 0 0 0

1967

PIT 6, SF 5 at Forbes Field

4 1 0 1

1968

HOU 10 SF 2 at Astrodome

3 0 0 0

1969

STL 3 SF 0 at Busch Stadium II

2 0 0 0

1970

Giants DNP

1971

Giants DNP

1972

SF 3, PHL 1, Veterans Stadium

Pinch Hit Walk

Traded to Mets May 11.

1973

1 0 0 0

Pinch Hit for in Third