12/28/17

Mack’s Apples – Michael Jordan, Romelio Martinez, Cole Hamels, Route Efficiency, China Baseball




Good morning.



Michael Jordan year in baseball could be made into a movie produced by Will Smith –

It’s been nearly 15 years since Michael Jordan first retired from the NBA and signed a minor-league contract to play baseball for the Chicago White Sox organization. Yet to this day, Jordan’s 1994 season with the Double-A Birmingham Barons is one of the most intriguing sports stories of the past 25 years. After a career as the greatest basketball player of all time, he wanted to try his hand at another sport.

That unexpected development, which almost has the status of a fable in professional sports, could be the subject of a feature film produced by Will Smith. As reported by The Tracking Board’s Jeff Sneider, Smith’s production company, Overbrook Entertainment, has picked up a script by Ben Epstein titled The Prospect.




Cuban Outstanding Baseball Player  Romelio Martinez   Dies-
        
    Cubans are in mourning for the death of Romelio Martinez Hernandez, one of the strongest batters who played in the national baseball championships.
The former player from the extinct Havana province died of cardiac arrest on Sunday at the CIMEQ Hospital in this capital at the age of 52.

Martinez was one of the greatest sluggers of all times in Cuban baseball. He batted 370 home runs in 13 National Series, so he is tied in the fourth place with another outstanding player, Antonio Muñoz.




  Cole Hamels donates his mansion to Missouri charity –
         
     Texas Rangers pitcher Cole Hamels and his wife, Heidi, are donating a 32,000-square-foot mansion and 100 acres of land in southwest Missouri to a charity that provides camps for children with special needs. The mansion and land is in the Table Rock Lake area, near Reeds Springs.

Heidi Hamels grew up in nearby Buffalo, Mo., and they were building the house when her husband was traded from Philadelphia to Texas in 2015. The Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader reports an attorney for the couple said they thought the mansion would be their dream home, but after the trade they moved to Texas and never moved to the Missouri property, which is valued at more than $9 million.




Major League Baseball's Statcast Can Break Sabermetrics -
         
   “On a historical basis, a decade from now, we’ll be looking back saying, ‘That was the highest route efficiency that’s ever been captured in baseball.’”

That’s what Joe Inzerillo—the executive vice president and chief technology officer of MLB Advanced Media—said in a league press release announcing baseball’s revolutionary new player-tracking system, Statcast. It hasn’t quite been a decade since that quote; it hasn’t quite, in fact, been three years. But route efficiency, the metric in question, has already disappeared.





MLB announced a 10-year deal that should significantly grow baseball in  China -
         
   The MLB facilities will teach baseball skills to children in grades 7 through 12 and offer mainstream school curriculum. It’s not an entirely different idea than some of the baseball academies that have been opened in Latin America. Right now, MLB has three development centers in China. They’ve turned out 36 players in the last four years that have gone on to play higher levels of baseball in the U.S., China, Japan or Korea. Three of the players have signed MLB contracts, 11 are on the Chinese National Team and 12 play professionally in China.

How do you say in Chinese: “seedy scumbag so-called agents handing out in the parking lot”?

11 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Hamels - hey, I'm giving away a few $9 million homes - anyone want one? Kidding aside, a wonderful act of kindness, it appears.

Will Smith as MJ? I guess so. Seems he should have made the movie at least 5 years earlier, if he is acting in it, as he is now 49.

Wonder if that Cuban guy was Cespedes' idol?

Jayson Bay took a shortest route to the ball once - shortest route to the fence, too. Fence 1, Bay 0.

Unknown said...

@Thomas I think D.J Dozer did it better than Bay

Tom Brennan said...

You're right, Ed: Dozier 1, Fence 0

Anthony Carnacchio said...

Wasn’t space jam about michael Jordan ?

Mack Ade said...

Anthony -

I sort of remember that.

Mike Freire said...

Classy guy, that Cole Hamels.......can you imagine building a house like that and "not getting around to moving in"? It's a fantastic gesture, but it also shows you the kind of money that some of these guys are making.

Some conspiracy theorists feel that MJ's year away from the NBA was actually a suspension for the gambling issues he had. In order to keep his image clean, he agreed to the year away, but it was never announced as such.

Not sure if that is true, but it would make sense since he went right back to being the best player in the NBA the following season.

bill metsiac said...

When will the Tebow movie be made? 😀

Tom Brennan said...

Tebow tomorrow, Billy boy!

Anonymous said...

Jordan retired to play for the White Sox more than 22 years ago, not 15.

bill metsiac said...

Mack did say 1994.The 15 had to be a typo.

Mack Ade said...

Anon - Bill:

Actually, that was a cut-n-paste of a paragraph from the Jordan story and it DID say 15 years.