Baseball: Pie Traynor, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, South Central, Ubaldo Jimenez

From Northborough's Mark Fidrych to Natick's Doug Flutie, professional athletes from the region have earned a certain level of affection from their hometown fans. But while local ball fields, street signs and other markers bear the names of less accomplished players, Framingham's Harold "Pie" Traynor, a Hall-of-Famer widely considered one of the best third baseman in baseball history, gets nary a thought in his hometown. The oversight is about to end, though. Town historian Fred Wallace, after securing the approval of several town boards, hopes to erect a plaque in Traynor's honor by next spring. Read more: link  

Ron described the infamous trade of Babe Ruth to the Yankees that "ruined" baseball here for almost a century, and he pointed out the single seat in the right field bleachers painted red amidst the sea of green to mark the exact spot where the longest measurable home run inside Fenway landed. Ted Williams clobbered it on June 9, 1946, off Detroit's Fred Hutchinson. Taped at 502 feet and authenticated by a newspaper story, the ball crashed through the straw hat of the man dozing in the storied seat -- Section 42, Row 37, Seat 21. That's Red Sox lore that I can remember! - http://www.torontosun.com/2011/09/13/on-the-trail-of-baseballs-holy-grail  

This is the only position under serious attack right now, although the 2011-12 offseason will go a long way to showing us just how perilous Gehrig’s position is. At the moment, the Iron Horse is ahead of Albert Pujols, both in performance and length of career. However, Pujols is fewer than 500 games behind Gehrig, and figures to play for at least another decade. Should Pujols sign a long-term deal with the Cardinals and finish his career in St. Louis, he has a reasonable shot at taking over this position. - http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/this-annotated-week-in-baseball-history-sept.-11-17-1941  

We contacted Strawberry for the story and he told me it was tough to make it out of South Central back in those days, but still easier than it is today. Back then, Strawberry was playing alongside other future major leaguers like Crenshaw High teammate Chris Brown. The area also had other up-and-comers back then like Eric Davis, Chili Davis, and Ozzie Smith. They all emerged together and plenty of MLB attention was drawn towards the Los Angeles inner city. There was a much bigger support network back then as well, geared towards funneling talented young players on to the correct elite path they'd need to take. - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/marinersblog/2016227323_trayvon_robinson_a_journey_to.html  

Despite a K/9 identical to last year and a K% higher than 2009, but not too far below last season, his SwStk% has taken a dive. Given the apparent quality of his stuff, his SwStk% has actually never been as high as one would expect. But this year, it is below league average for the first time in his career. I am guessing that his decreased velocity is the main culprit and thinking all this ties into his career worst BABIP and worst HR/FB ratio since 2007. In addition, his F-Strike% is at a career worst, even though his BB% dropped from last season and is just a hint worse than his career best mark in 2009. So, according to the underlying metrics we typically analyze, (Ubaldo) Jimenez has pitched at the same level as he always has, but the luck dragons have taken a bit out of his season. But given his huge unexplained velocity dip and some other weird numbers in his advanced metrics, he has been quite the enigma this season. If his velocity does not improve next spring training, he may not be as undervalued as we might expect and a full rebound is less of a guarantee. - http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/ubaldo-jimenez-head-scratcher-of-the-year