Tim Lincecum: - Tim Lincecum, the two time Cy Young Award winner, also had a great August. Lincecum pitched very accurately and he did a great job to keep the San Francisco Giants in the playoff race. With an ERA of 1.90, he struck-out 41 batters in 42.2 innings he pitched. With an ERA of 2 or below in three months of 2011, Tim is having a dream run this season. However, Giants un-reliable batting unit was unable to take advantage. http://blogs.bettor.com/Top-five-pitchers-in-Major-League-Baseball-for-the-month-of-August-2011-a104911
Jay Gibbons – OF - After making an appearance on my portion of the RLB pre-season predictions list, Gibbons was a major sleeper for me entering the year as potential LF option for the punchless Los Angeles Dodgers. However, despite his impressive showing in the second half of 2010, Gibbons was unable to hit his way onto Los Angeles’s 25-man roster the following season. Gibbons didn’t seemed to be bothered by the snub, as indicated by his solid .300/.403/.456 line for Albuquerque in 2011. This 34-year-old, despite his time out of baseball, age and links to PEDs, clearly still has something left in his bat. His lack of defensive ability leaves him limited to LF, so Gibbons will only be a fit on a Major League roster as a potential starter for a bad team that doesn’t want to spend money or a potentially effective pinch hitter for a team aiming to cut costs on their bench. More likely, however, Gibbons will once again need to prove himself worthy of a roster spot in AAA. - http://www.replacementlevelbaseball.com/2011/10/secret-free-agent-men-triple-a-free-agent-hitters
Forty years ago, Roberto Clemente took a stranglehold of the 1971 World Series and led his underdog Pirates to one of the most stunning upsets in October history. After trailing the Orioles, two games to none, the Pirates returned home to Pittsburgh to win Game Three, thanks in large part to some hustle by Clemente, who forced Mike Cuellar into a throwing error, and a three-run homer by Bob Robertson. That set the stage for Game Four, the first night game in the history of World Series play. As he did in the third game, Clemente made his impact felt, with three singles and a walk, though he did not score or drive in a run in the Pirates’ 4-3 win. Milt May, pinch-hitting for reliever Bruce Kison, delivered the game-winning hit in the bottom of the seventh. - http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/a-baseball-card-mystery
In February 1993, Cleveland Indians’ catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. arrived at spring training with an aching back aggravated by the drive to Florida. How could an athlete in his prime get injured behind the wheel? An athlete who survived the rigors of the catcher position 150 games per season? Why was a man of means driving in the first place? A sarcastic and shallow sports columnist (OK, it was me) suggested he must’ve been driving a Yugo. Probably a Yugo with a bumper sticker that mocked the traffic around him: “My other car is a Mercedes.” As I seem to remember, Alomar was not amused. Indignant, he shook his finger in my face while saying, “I don’t drive a Yugo.” http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/103617#ixzz1b8eKdWLe
There’s little Moneyball about these teams, each of whom has an abundance of old-school DNA in Nolan Ryan, the Rangers’ owner, who believes an entire generation of starting pitchers have been pampered and need to throw more and more and more; and Tony La Russa, the Cardinals’ manager, who poked fun at Moneyball this postseason when he described the reasoning behind playing Lance Berkman in right field: “We take the square footage between the right-field line and centre field and the square footage from left field to centre field, divide that by pi … multiply it by [BS], and then we pick the dugout. It is,” he said, “my tribute to Moneyball.” - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/jeff-blair/baseball-flourishes-without-salary-cap/article2204249
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