pirates talk
Through 2004, the Pirates had a total of 639 different players get hit by a pitch in franchise history. That ranks them 3rd all time behind the Cubs (665) and the Cardinals (653).
The Pirates employed Benito Santiago, briefly, at the beginning of this season, but he failed to capitalize on his opportunity to tie an all-time hit by pitch record (one which Craig Biggio has no shot at - thankfully). Santiago has been hit by a pitch while playing for 8 different teams. Santiago has been plunked while playing for the Cubs, Reds, Marlins, Royals, Phillies, Padres, Giants and Blue Jays. Santiago is the active leader, although his active status may be questionable, and one of the record holders is still planning on making a comeback any day now. Rickey Henderson shares the record with Todd Zeile for getting hit by a pitch on 9 different teams. Henderson took one for the Angels, Red Sox, Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, A's, Padres, Mariners, and Blue Jays. Zeile was plunked for the Cubs, Rockies, Marlins, Dodgers, Expos, Mets, Phillies, Cardinals and Rangers.
To follow up on the question from last week regarding pitchers who have spent their careers with one team and hit Craig Biggio with a pitch, the list is fairly short. John Smoltz has been with the Braves since 1988. Darren Driefort is the next longest tenured lifer having played for the Dodgers since 1994. After that the next longest careers are Matt Morris with St. Louis since '97, and Kerry Wood with the Cubs since '98. Smoltz and Driefort are the 1st and 4th longest tenured active players in the league right now, with non-Biggio-plunkers Brad Radke and Mariano Rivera tied for 2nd. Once again, long careers with one team are rare, and should be valued much more than they seem to be when people look at the career of a major leaguer.
3 Comments:
I done sent Junior down to the five and dime to fetch me some more duct tape and some of them little brass brads like Captain Kangaroo used to use to make all his craft projects. As soon as Junior comes back I'll be able to finish up my new Professional Series Prognostication Indicator and I'll be able to indicate when "Target" will pass Double T on the All Time List. Junior has been gone a day and a half and I am starting to reckon he might have been side tracked, however.
They announced the MacArthur Fellowship grants today, and I just don't understand how they could pass over Cletus and his work in the field of plunk prognostication. I'm sure all those other fellows were deserving but just think what Cletus could accomplish with $100k per year for 5 years. He could buy a previously unheard of octuple-wide for his Mama, thus ensuring she'd never again harass him while he was in the work shop creating his various devices. I have this vision in my head of the device Cletus might be able to construct if he had the time and money - Did anyone ever see that european TV ad for the Honda Accord where they took apart an Accord and built a rube goldberg device where each part moves and triggers the next part in a seamless 2 minute process that eventually leads to the trunk of an assembled Accord wagon popping open, with Garrison Keillor's voice over saying "Isn't it nice when things just work?"? I picture it just like that but with a 1974 Chevy pickup and the voice of Waylon Jennings somehow announcing the date and time of the next pitcher to hit Craig Biggio with a pitch.
But no. The MacArthur Foundation doesn't see the world my way.
Turns out Junior walked out to the other side of Stillwell and got lost. He was gone two days and didn’t have anything to eat except for a Slim Jim™ and a six pack of Twinkies® he took out of my pickup truck and shoved in the ‘possum pocket of his ‘possum belly overalls. He gnawed that Slim Jim™ down before he got ten paces out of the trailer park, but he managed to last the two days on them Twinkies® because he paced himself. I reckon that is one of the primary factors in a successful life – learning to pace yourself. I always harp on that to Junior and the twins so I reckon that boy must have been listening and learned something from my harpin’. That, or else he is a dumb as a sack of hammers and forgot all about them things being in his pocket and it took him two days to reach in there and find them. Either way, he is alive and back home.
Junior got me them brads like Captain Kangaroo use to use and I done fastened them in to my new prognostication device and attached all the wires and connected it to a 12 volt battery with about 30 minutes of life left in it (just the right amount of juice for my needs) and I have now assembled what is undoubtedly the finest prognostication device this side of Canton, China. I got everything set up out in the shed and commenced to tinkering and adjusting and I reckon I got it just about as refined as it is going to get. I went through two pots of coffee and an entire family value pack of Wrigley Spearmint Gum® before I looked down and seed all them gum wrappers at my feet and it dawned on me that on Friday the 23rd our man Craig “Target” Biggio and his teammates will take on the hapless Chicago Cubs – and we all know that the hapless Chicago Cubs play their home games in Wrigley Field, a ball park named after P.K.Wrigley, the same feller what promoted the very same gum.
Now don’t get me wrong, I ain’t claiming that P.K.Wrigley is responsible for chewing gum being embraced by the world – that honor goes to General Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, eleven time President of Mexico and the scalawag who got defeated at San Jacinto on 21st of April, 1836… which is why public libraries in the Houston area are closed on the 21st day of April, and why I could not get in there and research on boys names back a while ago when Junior was about to be born. Junior was born and we ended up giving him the legal name “Junior” on account of us not being able to agree on any particular name… on account of me not being able to get in to the library to look up names… on account of it being 21st of April and that being a holiday n Texas… on account of the scalawag Santa Anna getting his back side spanked by a bunch of irregulars in the Republic of Texas Army. But that’s another story.
Anyhow, the same Santa Ana what got defeated at the battle of San Jacinto is the man to blame for bringing chewing gum to the world, but I won’t go in to that here and now. I need to explain that Target is going to next get plunked on Friday 23rd when playing against the hapless Chicago Cubs. Them little brads like Captain Kangaroo used to use on his television show done confirmed it.
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