The Braves slicked down the infield to mess with Jose Reyes

By Craig CalcaterraJun 15, 2011, 8:25 AM EST
35 Comments

Well, we don’t know for sure that they did that, but it seemed kind of obvious that the infield dirt was overly moist and muddy last night as the Mets-Braves game got underway. The reasonable inference: that they did it to slow down Jose Reyes, who said that he had never seen infield dirt that wet, “not even close.”

Of course, it didn’t work: Reyes stole two bases anyway and reached three times. Given the struggles Jair Jurrjens had, maybe they should have slicked down the ball to help the movement on his pitches a bit.

As ineffective as the Braves’ bit of gamesmanship turned out to be, the Mets lodged a complaint with the league over the infield. Which I would have too, because such wet dirt could possibly be a safety issue, and is definitely a laundry issue, and neither one of those things is good for the game.

The 2019 Hall of Fame Class will be announced this evening

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By Craig CalcaterraJan 22, 2019, 6:06 AM EST
3 Comments

This year’s Hall of Fame ballot was released just over two months ago. This evening at 6:15 PM Eastern, all of the arguing stops. Well, actually, it doesn’t stop, because it never stops. Not really. It just transforms into something more pointless, because as of then, the 2019 Hall of Fame class will be officially announced live on MLB Network.

The entire ballot can be found here. Two weeks ago I went through it, candidate-by-candidate, in order to determine who I would vote for if, in fact, I had a vote. For what it’s worth, I ended up with Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling, Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, Manny Ramirez. and Scott Rolen.

No, not all of those guys will be elected. I strongly suspect we’ll get three, with an outside chance at a fourth. Based on the best Hall of Fame voting tracker out there, Mariano Rivera is a lock. So too, it seems, is Roy Halladay. Edgar Martinez — on the ballot for is tenth and final time — likewise seems to have the support to finally make it. He was 20 votes short last year and, so far, he has picked up more than 20 new votes among voters who have revealed their ballots. Assuming that previous Martinez voters who have not released their ballots do not backtrack — a safe assumption — Edgar should, at long last, finally make it into Cooperstown.

The last guy who, at present, is trending above the required 75% is Mike Mussina who, at present, is included on 81% of public ballots. There is a tendency for the non-public voters to be stingier with their support, however, so there’s a pretty decent chance that Mussina will fall just under the threshold and will find himself back on the ballot next year. A jump from last year’s 63.5% support to something in the 70s, however, would bode very well for his 2020 chances. If he somehow makes it this year’s class will rival last year’s four-person BBWAA-elected class as one of the better ones in living memory.

Who will join Harold Baines and Lee Smith on the stage in Cooperstown in July? We find out this evening, just after 6 PM.