Willie Mays

Willie Howard Mays, Jr. (born May 6, 1931 in Westfield, Alabama; outside of Birmingham) is a retired American baseball player who played the majority of his career with the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing his career with the New York Mets. Nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility. Mays won two MVP awards and tied a record with twenty-four appearances in the All-Star Game. He ended his career with 660 career home runs, third at the time of his retirement, and currently fourth all-time. Many consider him to be the greatest all-around player of all-time.

Mays' first Major League manager, Leo Durocher, described his abundance of talent, saying: "He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: hit, hit with power, run, throw, and field. And he had that other ingredient that turns a superstar into a super superstar. He lit up the room when he came in. He was a joy to be around."

Upon his Hall of Fame induction, Mays was asked to name the best player that he had seen during his career. Mays replied, "I don't mean to be bashful, but I was."

MLB debut

May 25, 1951 for the New York Giants

Final game

September 8, 1973 for the New York Mets

Career statistics

Batting average     .302

Home runs     660

Hits     3,283

Teams

New York / San Francisco Giants (1951-1952, 1954-1972)

New York Mets (1972-1973)

Career highlights and awards

21x All-Star selection (1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973)

12x Gold Glove Award winner (1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968)

2x NL MVP (1954, 1965)

1951 NL Rookie of the Year

2x MLB All-Star Game MVP (1963, 1968)

1971 Roberto Clemente Award

San Francisco Giants #24 retired

Member of the National

Baseball Hall of Fame 

Elected     1979

Who is the greatest baseball player ever?

Do you think that a pitcher should get the vote as the greatest player? After all, they dictate the play, get players out, save games and can completely change a game. But often they are poor at scoring.

So should it be a slugger who is the best ever as they are the players that steal bases and hit to score.

So who is the greatest baseball player ever to play the game?

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Joe DiMaggio

Joseph Paul DiMaggio, born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, Jr. (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed Joltin' Joe and The Yankee Clipper, was a baseball player who played his entire Major League career (1936–1951) for the New York Yankees. He was the brother of Vince DiMaggio and Dom DiMaggio. He was born in Martinez, California, and moved to San Francisco at one year old.  

DiMaggio was a 3-time MVP winner and 13-time All-Star who was widely hailed for his accomplishment on both offense and, as a center fielder, on defense, as well as for the grace with which he played the game. At the time of his retirement at age 36, he had the fifth-most career home runs (361) and sixth-highest slugging percentage (.579) in history. He is also the only player in baseball history to be selected for the All-Star Game in every season he played.

A "picture-perfect" player, DiMaggio achieved a 56-game hitting streak (May 15 – July 16, 1941) that has been called baseball's most mythic achievement. After going hitless for one game, DiMaggio hit in the next 16 consecutive games, for a total of 72 out of 73. A 1969 poll conducted to coincide with the centennial of professional baseball voted him the sport's greatest living player.

In January 1938, DiMaggio met actress Dorothy Arnold on the set of Manhattan Merry Go-Round. They married at San Francisco's Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church on November 19, 1939 as 20,000 well-wishers jammed the streets. The relationship wasf and on. Dorothy reportedly promised Joe she would wait for him to return from 1946 training camp, but married another man. It was only after he met another blonde actress on a blind date in 1952 did he finally get her out of his system for good.

According to her autobiography, Marilyn Monroe did not want to meet DiMaggio, fearing he was a stereotypical jock. Both were at different points in their lives: the just-retired Joe wanted to settle down; Marilyn's career was taking off. Their dlopement at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954 was the culmination of a courtship that had captivated the nation.

The relationship was loving yet complex, marred by his jealousy and her ambition. DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer asserts it was also violent. One incident allegedly happened after the skirt-blowing scene in The Seven Year Itch was filmed on September 14, 1954 in front of New York's Trans-Lux Theater. Then-20th Century Fox's East Coast correspondent Bill Kobrin told the Palm Springs Desert Sun that it was Billy Wilder's idea to turn the shoot into a circus: "... every time her dress came up and the crowd started to get excited, DiMaggio just blew up." The couple then had a "yelling battle" in the theater lobby. When she filed for divorce 274 days after the wedding, Oscar Levant quipped it proved that no man could be a success in two pastimes.

An August 1, 1956 International News wire photo of DiMaggio with Lee Meriwether announced their engagement, but Cramer wrote that it was a rumor started by Walter Winchell. He was later linked to 1957 Miss America Marian McKnight, who won the crown with a Marilyn act. Marilyn biographer Donald Spoto claimed they were "very close to marrying" but she denies it. Biographers and news reports also linked him to Liz Renay, Cleo Moore, Marlene Dietrich, Gloria DeHaven, and Elizabeth Ray, but he never publicly confirmed any involvement.

DiMaggio re-entered Marilyn's life as her marriage to Arthur Miller was ending. On February 10, 1961, he secured her release from Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. She joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach for the Yankees. Their "just friends" claim did not stop remarriage rumors from flying. Reporters staked out her apartment building. Bob Hope "dedicated" Best Song nominee "The Second Time Around" to them at the 33rd Academy Awards.

According to biographer Maury Allen, Joe was so alarmed at how Marilyn had returned to her self-destructive ways, falling in with people he felt detrimental to her (including Frank Sinatra and his "Rat Pack"), he quit his job with a military post-exchange supplier on August 1, 1962 to ask her to remarry him. But before he could, she was found dead on August 5. Her death was deemed a probable suicide but is subject to endless conspiracy theories. Devastated, he claimed her body and arranged her funeral, barring Hollywood's elite. He had a half-dozen red roses delivered 3 times a week to her crypt for the next 20 years. Unlike her other two husbands or other men who knew her intimately (or claimed to) he refused to talk about her publicly or write a tell-all. He never remarried.

Career statistics

AVG     .325

HR     361

Hits     2214

Teams

New York Yankees (1936-1942,1946-1951)

Career highlights and awards

AL MVP 1939, 1941, & 1947

Led league in batting average 1939 (.381) & 1940 (.352)

Led league in slugging percentage 1937 (.673) & 1950 (.585)

Led league in runs 1937 (151)

Led league in total bases 1937 (418), 1941 (348) & 1948 (355)

Led league in triples 1936 (15)

Led league in home runs 1937 (46) & 1948 (39)

Led league in RBIs 1941 (125) & 1948 (155)

Led league in extra-base hits 1941 (84) & 1950 (75)

Led league in At Bats per Home Run 1948 (15.2)

Had at least one hit in 56 consecutive games.

Member of the National

Baseball Hall of Fame 

Elected     1955

The Los Angeles Dodgers player their baseball at Dodger Stadium in the National League's Western Division. Although the actual team was established in 1883, they became the Dodgers based in LA in 1958.

The LA Dodgers have a great record in the World Series, winning the title 6 times - 1955, 1959,  1963,  1965, 1981 and 1988. They regulalry win their division, The Dodgers are current Western NL Champions.

The Dodgers are one of America's most famous teams and in 1947, they were the first ever MLB team to have a black player - Hall Of Famer Jackie Robinson. Other famous Dodgers include Sandy Koufax, Rickey Henderson and Roy Campenella. Their current rosta is strong with players like Rafael Furcal and the fiery Manny Ramirez, probably the most famous baseball slugger in todays game. The ex-Red Sox ace transformed The Dodgers season in 2008 when he joined halfway through and took them to the top of their division. After a turbulent off-season with heated contracts being thrown about, Manny Ramirez will start the 2009 season as a Dodger.

With Manny Ramirez in their team, I think The Dodgers can go all the way to the World Series this season but can one man make a team? Perhaps Manny can.

That's what I think anyway.

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Baseball Player Profile

Babe Ruth

George Herman Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948), also popularly known as "Babe", "The Bambino", and "The Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914 to 1935. Named the greatest baseball player in history in various surveys and rankings, his home run hitting prowess and charismatic personality made him a larger than life figure in the "Roaring Twenties". He was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927), a record which stood for 34 years until broken by Roger Maris in 1961. Ruth's lifetime total of 714 home runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record for 39 years, until broken by Hank Aaron in 1974. Unlike many power hitters, Ruth also hit for average: his .342 lifetime batting is tenth highest in baseball history, and in one season (1923) he hit .393, just missing the vaunted .400 mark. His .690 career slugging percentage, and 1.164 career OPS, remain the major league records.

No hitter has dominated his league the way that Ruth did. He led the league in home runs during a season twelve times, slugging percentage thirteen times, OPS thirteen times, runs scored eight times, and RBIs six times. Each of those totals constitutes a modern record.

In 1936, Ruth became one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1969, he was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100th anniversary of professional baseball. In 1998, The Sporting News ranked Ruth Number 1 on the list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players." In 1999, baseball fans named Ruth to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. According to ESPN, he was the first true American sports celebrity superstar whose fame transcended baseball. In a 1999 ESPN poll, he was ranked as the third greatest US athlete of the century, behind Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali.

Although he spent most of his career as an outfielder with the New York Yankees, Ruth began his career as a successful starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. While Babe Ruth will always be remembered as one of the greatest hitters of all time, he was also an adept pitcher. In his first World Series game for the Red Sox in 1916, Babe set a record that still stands today, pitching 13 scoreless innings, thus producing the longest complete game in World Series history at 14 innings. He compiled an 89-46 win-loss record during his time with the Red Sox, pitching 29 2/3 scoreless World Series innings (a record which stood for 43 years). In 1918, Ruth started to play in the outfield and at first base so he could help the team on a day-to-day basis as a hitter. In 1919, appearing in 111 games as an outfielder, he hit 29 home runs to break Ned Williamson's record for a single season.

In 1920, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth to the New York Yankees. In his next 15 seasons in New York, Ruth led the league or placed in the top ten in batting average, slugging percentage, runs, total bases, home runs, RBIs, and walks several times. In contrast, after he was sold from the Red Sox, the Red Sox franchise floundered for decades after having been previously the most successful Major League team prior to the trade. This great disparity of success between the Yankees and Red Sox eventually led to a superstition that was dubbed the "Curse of the Bambino", a "curse" that effectively ended in 2004 when the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years.

Beyond his unprecedented statistics, Ruth completely changed baseball itself. The popularity of the game exploded in the 1920s, largely due to him. Ruth ushered in the "live-ball era" as his big swing led to gargantuan home run totals that not only excited fans, but helped baseball evolve from a low-scoring, speed-dominated game to a high-scoring power game.

Off the field he was famous for his charity, but also was noted for his often reckless lifestyle that epitomized the hedonistic 1920s. Ruth became an American icon, and even though he died nearly 60 years ago his name is still one of the most famous in all of American sports. His participation in an all-star tour of Japan in 1934 sparked that country's rabid interest in professional baseball; a decade later, Japanese soldiers seeking the ultimate insult for American troops would sometimes shout, "To hell with Babe Ruth!"

Career statistics

Batting average     .342

Home runs     714

Run batted in     2,217

Teams

Boston Red Sox (1914–1919)

New York Yankees (1920–1934)

Boston Braves (1935)

Career highlights and awards

2x All-Star selection (1933, 1934)

7x World Series champion (1915, 1916, 1918, 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932)

1923 AL MVP

First player to hit 30, 40, 50 and 60 home runs in a season

New York Yankees #3 retired

Ranks in the top 10 of numerous career statistics

MLB Records

0.690 career slugging %

1.164 career OPS

Member of the National

Baseball Hall of Fame 

Elected     1936

I raised the question in an earlier post about whether A-Rod - Alex Rodriguez - Would gain a place in the Baseball Hall Of Fame after his cheating-by-drug-use scandal despite being a great player even after the substance abuse is alledged to have stopped.

Should players be inducted after such a thing as cheating?

In an interview I watched on the ESPN America channel (UK Sky channel 417) Baseball Tonight, Nolan Ryan said that he would vote FOR the induction of players who have this alledged controversy hanging around them like legends Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

Although the difference is that A-Rod has admitted it but Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens haven't.

Nolan Ryan is now President of the Texas Rangers. He is one of the best pitchers the game has ever seen with stats like 324 wins in 807 games pitched and a staggering 5386 innings pitched, only four other pitchers have pitched more in baseball history. Ryan started in 773 games, second only to the great Cy Young, and is top of the leader board for strikeouts with 5714, the most in baseball history.

So if Nolan Ryan is ok with it then that's good enough for me. If a player of his baseball stature isn't left feeling cheated by it all then should the rest of us?

interesting.

That's what I think anyway.

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Baseball Team Feature - Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs are one of the two Chicago teams, the other of course are the Chicago White Socks. The Cubs play their baseball at Wrigley Field in the Central Division of the National League. Although the club was established in 1870, after several name changes, they became the Cubs in 1902 and the Franchise has remained there ever since.

The Chicago Cubs won a World Series double way back in 1907 and 1908 and have now become known for not having won in 100 years! all this despite winning the Central Division titles in 2003, 2007 and 2008 and before that, the East Division titles in 1984 and 1989 and a wildcard place in 1998. For all this they have unfortunately earned the nickname The Loveable Losers.

Famous Cubs include Ron Santo, Dennis Eckersley, Ryne Sandberg, Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, Billy Williams and supreme slugger Sammy Sosa.

The squad now has Ryan Dempster, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, Ryan Theriot and crowd favourite Kosuke Fukudome.

How long can the Cubs go without a World Series win? Instead of the “almosts” perhaps the season of 2009 will finally be theirs, but it will be very tough as there are stronger teams around like the Phillies, Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox. But who knows?

That’s what I think anyway

Baseball Trivia

Baseball is a huge sport not only in the USA but all over the world as the current World Baseball Classics are proving, with teams from South Africa, Italy, Netherlands, Australia, South Korea, China, Mexico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic as well as Canada and America and last tournaments first winners Japan back in 2006. I know I have missed out some teams, but you get the idea. The World Baseball Classics idea was in 2005 to promote the baseball all over the world.

Here's some more baseball trivia.

The first All-Star game was in 1933 at Comiskey Park, Chicago!

Interleague play began in 1997!

The Knickerbockers of New York were the first team to wear uniforms!

The Cincinnati Reds were the first team to introduce saeson ticket plans in 1934!

Batting helmits became mandatory in 1971!

Joe DiMaggio hit in 61 straight games in his rookie year!!! for the San Fransisco Seals in 1933!

Topps published its first baseball cards in 1951!

The Infield Fly Rule started in 1895!

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Baseball - World Baseball Classic 2009 News

Wow, bit of a shocker as Italy knocks out Canada!!

Italy beat Canada 6-2 at the Rogers Center in Toronto the home of the Blue Jays.

Baseball Player Feature

Cy Young

Denton True "Cy" Young (March 29, 1867 – November 4, 1955) was an American baseball player who pitched for five different major league teams from 1890 to 1911. He established numerous professional pitching records during his 22-year career in the majors, some of which have stood for a century. Young retired with 511 career wins, the most in MLB history and 94 more wins than Walter Johnson, who is second on the list.

In honor of Young's contributions to Major League Baseball, MLB created the Cy Young Award, an annual award given to the pitcher voted the most effective in each of the two leagues. The Baseball Hall of Fame elected Young in 1939. During his professional career, Young won at least 30 games in a season five times, with ten other seasons of 20+ wins. He also pitched three no-hitters, including the first perfect game of baseball's "modern era."

In addition to wins, Young holds the MLB records for most career innings pitched (7,355), most career games started (815), and most complete games (749). He also retired with 316 losses the most in MLB history (the only other pitcher with more than 300 career losses was Pud Galvin). Young had 76 career shutouts, fourth most in history.

In 1999, 88 years after his final Major League appearance and 44 years after his death, editors at The Sporting News ranked Cy Young 14th on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". That same year, baseball fans named Young to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Pitcher

Born: March 29, 1867

Gilmore, Ohio 

Died: November 4, 1955 (aged 88)

Newcomerstown, Ohio

Batted: Right Threw: Right

MLB debut August 6, 1890. for the Cleveland Spiders

Final game October 11, 1911 for the Boston Rustlers

Career statistics

Win-Loss     511-316

E.R.A.     2.63

Strikeouts     2798

Teams

Cleveland Spiders (1890-1898)

St. Louis Perfectos (1899-1900)

Boston Americans/Red Sox (1901-1908)

Cleveland Naps (1909-1911)

Boston Rustlers (1911)

Career highlights and awards

Won the 1901 AL Triple Crown for Pitchers.

1st All-Time wins (511)

1st All-Time IP (7354 2/3)

1st All-Time Games Started (815)

1st All-Time Complete Games (749)

World Series title (1903)

American League pennant (1904)

Pitched two no-hitters (1897, 1908)

Pitched perfect game (1904)

Boston Red Sox Career Leader in WHIP (.97), Walks/9IP (.99) and Complete Games (275)

Member of the National

Baseball Hall of Fame 

Elected     1937

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