Baseball: Difference between revisions

== Historical people to know in MLB ==

* '''Babe Ruth''' was, for many years, recognized as the greatest player ever, and probably the most influential player ever. If you've only heard of one ballplayer, it's probably him. He was originally a pitcher, and awesome, but changed position when management determined he was even more awesome as an everyday position player. He hit lots of home runs at a time when everybody else hit hardly any, which prompted baseball leaders to change the ball and thus lower the [[Difficulty Levels]] of hitting, leading largely to today's game. Was sold to the NY Yankees by the Boston Red Sox, which supposedly cursed the Sox to not win a World Series ever again (or at least until 2004). His records have since mostly been broken. Subject of numerous tall tales about his sex and alcohol-related experiences. Was rumored to be partially black, which back in his day was a pretty big deal. He was once given a rather enormous contract which let him earn more than the President, in an era when people didn't think that was a good thing. His response: "[[Badass Boast|I had a]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|better year than he did]]." <ref>The President at the time was [[Herbert Hoover]], so Ruth's statement was probably accurate.</ref>

* '''"Shoeless" Joe Jackson''' was a really good player for the White Sox until he got accused of helping out some gamblers during the 1919 World Series (the infamous "Black Sox" scandal). He was not one of the major figures in the scandal, but he was still banned for knowing about the incident and not reporting it, and was easily the most popular player to be banned. The phrase "Say it ain't so, Joe" is a reference to this incident, and occasionally comes up in Vice-Presidential debates every now and then.

* '''Hank Aaron''' broke Babe Ruth's career home run record. Being African-American, he quite naturally had to deal with a little bit of intolerance as he approached the record. However, Aaron holds many records such as Total Bases earned, a record he is particularly proud of since he considers it more indicative of how much he contributed for his team. He also holds the career record for runs batted in with 2,297, and had 3,771 total hits. (Anyone who gets close to 3,000 is considered a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame.) Aaron was a model of consistency; he never hit 50 homers in a season, but he hit 40 or more eight times, 30 or more 15 times, and had a streak of 19 straight years in which he hit at least 24 homers. He is one of the leading candidates for the title of best baseball player ever.

* '''Greg Maddux''' Also known as "Mad Dog" or "The Professor", Maddux pitched for the Cubs, Braves, Padres, and Dodgers. He was discovered at a young age when scouts went to see his brother Mike, and his father said "you'll be back later for the little one". Most scouts were turned off by the scrawny kid who had no velocity on his fastball, but Chicago Cubs scout Doug Mapson saw past it saying "I really believe this boy would be the number one player in the country if only he looked a bit more physical". 1987 was his first full year in the majors, and Maddux went 6–14 record and 5.61 ERA, with several people saying "we told you so, he won't make it. Too scrawny and not enough juice on the ball". Then, in 1988 it started (finishing 18–8 with a 3.18 ERA). Gregory Alan Maddux cut a swath of devastation not seen in major league history, going SEVENTEEN seasons with at least fifteen (15) wins. During this time Maddux would often have an ERA lower than is batting average, he won Gold Gloves (18 in his career), Cy Young Awards (four in his career). To give an indication of his dominance during this period; "On July 22, 1997, Maddux threw a complete game with just 76 pitches, against the Cubs. Three weeks earlier, he had shut out the defending champion New York Yankees on 84 pitches, and five days before that, he'd beaten the Phillies with a 90-pitch complete game. Maddux allowed just 20 bases on balls in 1997, including six intentional walks. Ignoring those six intentional walks, Maddux only went to a 3-0 count on one batter in all of 1997". He eventually joined the 3000 strike out club, and passed Clemens in career wins. His mind and ability to read players was uncanny; he once intentionally gave up a homer to Jeff Bagwell so later on in the season Bagwell would look for that pitch again. On another occasion, while sitting on the bench, Maddux once told everyone "watch this, we might need to call an ambulance for the first base coach." The batter then drove the next pitch into the chest of the Dodgers' first base coach. There are several other stories about Greg Maddux, and no one should argue his credentials as one of the greatest of all time.

 

* '''Alex Rodriguez''' of the NY Yankees is baseball's highest paid player. This fact combined with the fact that he used performance-enhancing drugs at one point make him one of baseball's most passionately disliked figures. His status as one of the game's all-time greats is not in doubt, as he's been a prime MVP candidate every year since he turned 21 in 1996. (He has won the award three times.) But he's still hated, even by Yankees fans, for nebulous reasons ranging from "he's cold and distant" to "he hasn't played in a World Series" (not true after 2009) to "he doesn't deliver big hits when you need them" (an assertion not backed up by statistics), among others. Known by his nickname "A-Rod", but prior to 2009 his lack of postseason performance led to detractors (including within the Yankees lockerroom) to call him "A-Fraud", and his admission in 2009 to having used steroids early in his carreer inevitably led to him being called "A-Roid".

* '''Derek Jeter''', shortstop for the NY Yankees, has generally been thought of as the "heart and soul" of the current run of great Yankees teams (dating to the mid-'90s), although he's usually not their best player statistically. He's a very talented player who's personable, charismatic, and has a tendency to play well in clutch situations; however, sportswriters and Yankees fans have often had a Godlike reverence of him to the point of causing a [[Hype Backlash]] for everyone else.

** He's also called "El Hombre" (The Man), although he has said that the nickname "The Man" only belongs to the former Cardinals slugger Stan Musial, to whom the name is a [[Shout-Out]] and [[Call Back]].

* '''Ichiro Suzuki''' of the Seattle Mariners is the first Japanese player to have a protracted, successful career in the American majors, and holds the record for hits in a single season. Despite not appearing in the majors until he was 27, he is on pace for over 3,000 hits. He is considered a lock for the Hall of Fame once he becomes eligible. He is also an apparent victim of [[Memetic Mutation]].

* '''Ozzie Guillen''' is the former manager of the Chicago White Sox and current manager of the Miami Marlins. He is credited with making the White Sox a winning team again, though he is also perpetually in the news for saying something controversial, often an inflammatory remark regarding a player, umpire, or sportswriter. (However, there are many who feel he attracts controversy to himself on purpose [[The Chessmaster|in order to take heat off his players]].)

* '''Joe Mauer''' of the Minnesota Twins is often thought of as the second-best player in baseball (after Albert Pujols) and, despite only being in his mid-20s, is already considered one of the best-hitting catchers in MLB history. Barring injury, he will likely be one of the game's biggest stars for the next decade or so. Also notable for being something of a hometown hero, as he grew up in the Twin Cities and has spent his entire career (thus far) with Minnesota. Easily the most marketable player currently, he's been in commercials for Head & Shoulders and Sony's MLB The Show series. Well played, Mauer.

* '''Vin Scully''', announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers for ''[[Long Runners|sixty]]'' seasons, is often regarded as one of the greatest baseball announcers ever. A recipient of the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting, he is revered in California, and was listed as the greatest sports announcer ever by the American Sportswriters Association. But, more importantly, he's regarded as the soul of the Dodgers, much like Chick Hearn was to the Lakers. During the 1980s, he was the main play-by-play announcer for NBC's baseball coverage, where his warm, friendly voice became familiar to a nationwide audience. Three of his most iconic calls are Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run (against a Dodgers pitcher), Bill Buckner's error in the 1986 World Series, and Kirk Gibson's game-winning home run off Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series.

* '''Josh Hamilton''' is a standout hitter, currently playing for the Texas Rangers. While he's been in the league in some form or another since 1999, he really only started to get attention when he started playing for Texas - his dominance at the plate is cited as one of the key factors in their 2010 turnaround. In the 2008 Home Run Derby, he hit a record 28 home runs in the first round, though the amazing performance ended up working against him; by the final round, he had tired himself out slugging so many home runs that he ended up losing to Justin Morneau (as the home run totals were reset for the finals). Early (and later) in his career, he's dealt with his addiction to alcohol - because of this, when the Rangers won the division and their two playoff series in 2010, they celebrated with ginger ale instead. After the season, Hamilton would be named the American League MVP for 2010.

* '''Justin Verlander''' of the Detroit Tigers is another candidate for best pitcher in the game. Playing for the Detroit Tigers, he pretty much walked away with the American League Cy Young by winning the Pitching Triple Crown: most wins (24), strikeouts (250) and lowest ERA (2.4). He was instrumental in the Tigers running away with the American League Central division title. There is serious debate on whether or not he deserves the American League MVP award, which is seldom awarded to a pitcher because of strong feelings that it should go to an everyday player, and not one who plays every four or five days.

* '''Armando Galaragga''' became famous for his perfect game for the Detroit Tigers which was tarnished by a bad call by umpire Jim Joyce, who tearfully apologized, leading to an [[Unlikely Friendship]] between the two. He later traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks where he seemed to [[Took a Level in Jerkass|take a level in jerkass]] and hasn't been heard from since being demoted to their Triple-A affliate in Reno. He has, however, opted to enter Free Agency once the World Series is over.

* The '''Boston Red Sox''' are often considered by their fans to be [[La Résistance]] to the Yankees' [[The Empire|Evil Empire]] (this view is not well received by fans of other teams these days, [[Rule-Abiding Rebel|given that they have effectively acted exactly like the Yankees since 2004]]), and had a 86-year span from 1918 to 2004 in which they did not win a single World Series (this is sometimes known as "The Curse of the Bambino", although despite what the [[Cultural Translation|American film version of]] ''[[Fever Pitch]]'' told you, barely any hardcore Sox fans believed that this curse was why they kept losing). That finally ended in 2004 when the Red Sox, coming off a [[Miracle Rally]] that saw them come back from a unprecedented 3 games to nothing hole to beat the Yankees, swept the Cardinals in the World Series (during [[Weird Moon|a lunar eclipse]], nonetheless). The Red Sox are [[Serious Business]] in Boston, and the rivalry between them and the Yankees is the biggest [[Fandom Rivalry]] in North American sports, if not sports period. When viewed from outside the rivalry, however, the Red Sox have since the end of the curse merely become the lesser of two evils (the result of [[He Who Fights Monsters|adopting Yankee-like spending habits]]). The Red Sox play in Fenway Park, the oldest stadium in Major League Baseball. Fenway itself is known for "The Green Monster", a ridiculously high left-field wall erected to compensate for its close relative proximity to home plate. (Short pop flies that would be easily caught in other parks can turn into home runs over the Green Monster, while hard liners that would fly out of other parks bounce off the Green Monster for doubles or sometimes even singles. In rare cases balls have come close to landing on the nearby [[Mass Pike]].) Experienced one of the biggest collapses in baseball history in September 2011 when they went 7-20 blowing not only the lead in the AL East to the Yankees, but losing their wild card spot to the Rays despite being ahead of them by 9 games at the start of the month. [[Never Live It Down|Because of the management after Jackie Robinson's debut, they were the absolute last team to integrate in baseball]], passing on both Robinson and Willie Mays.

* The '''Chicago White Sox''': President [[Barack Obama]]'s favorite team (to the point where he wore their logo-jacket to an All-Star Game in [[St. Louis]], resulting in a awkward situation), they also had a [[Butt Monkey]] era, which began, it is said, in 1919 when 8 of the team's players ("The Black Sox" or "the 8 Men Out"), including Shoeless Joe Jackson, either took, intended to take or knew the others were taking money to throw the World Series. All 8 of them were kicked out. Forever. And then the White Sox didn't win anything until 2005, when [[Magnificent Bastard]] Ozzie Guillen (who had starred for them as a shortstop during [[The Nineties]]) guided them to a World Series championship. It still didn't make them more popular than the Cubs, though.

* The '''Detroit Tigers''' are one of the charter American League teams. Historically, they've alternated between periods of brilliance and long dry spells of non-contention. After enduring one such dry spell for over two decades following their 1984 World Series championship (which included losing ''119 games'' in 2003, one shy of tying the Major League record for losses in 162 games), the Tigers came out of nowhere in 2006 to reach the Fall Classic again (only to get unexpectedly and swiftly defeated by the Cardinals). However, high expectations in ensuing seasons failed to bear fruit; in 2009, the team suffered one of the worst collapses in baseball history, losing a three game division lead with only four games to play. The Tigers seem to have redeemed themselves, however, in 2011, reaching the ALCS with an excellent offense and one of the best pitching rotations in AL history (headed by the aforementioned Justin Verlander, with Jose "Papa Grande" Valverde serving as an absolute top-notch closer). The Tigers have boasted several Hall of Famers in their history, including Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford in the 1900s and '10s, Hank Greenberg (the majors' first Jewish-American star) and Charlie Gehringer in the '30s and '40s, and Al Kaline in the '50s and '60s. Another Tiger Hall of Famer is the late broadcaster Ernie Harwell, who called the team's games for over 40 years and was basically the AL counterpart to Vin Scully.

* The '''Kansas City Royals''' are the American League's equivalent of the Pirates, albeit without most of the history and with a management team that seems to give a crap. The franchise did enjoy some glory years in the late 1970s and early '80s (winning several division titles, two AL pennants in 1980 and 1985, and the 1985 World Series, and boasting eventual Hall of Famer George Brett at third base) before sliding into perennial non-contention in the ensuing decades. Their stadium, which features a fountain just beyond the center field fence, is regarded as one of the nicest in baseball. (And just to clarify, they play in Missouri, not Kansas.)

** An interesting thing to note is that despite only existing for 14 years, there's been only ''4 years'' so far where a Diamondbacks player hasn't been nominated for the Cy Young award. This kind of gives an implication that the Diamondbacks are like Heaven for pitchers, although it does help that they had one of the very best one-two pitching tandems around for a few years.

* The '''Atlanta Braves''' are, along with the Cubs, one of the two franchises that have existed since the beginning of the National League, though they were originally based in Boston and later Milwaukee. Actually, they're even older than that; they were formed when the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, folded and their manager and key players migrated to Boston. They are the oldest continuously exsisting sports franchise in America. Historically, they've had flashes of success interspersed with long periods of being a [[Butt Monkey]]. The team of Hank Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth's career home run record despite receiving numerous death threats. After Aaron, they went from mediocre to horrible in the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1991, they went worst-to-first, went on an absolute tear in the second half of the season, defeated the Pirates on a controversial call in the NL Championship Series, and lost in the World Series. Then, in 1992, they basically did the same thing all over again. From then until 2005, they made the playoffs every year, won one World Series, and were best known for their outstanding starting pitching rotation. After 2005, they slid back into mediocrity for the next few years, but returned to the postseason as the wild card in 2010. In 2011, they were poised to reach the postseason again, but suffered a horrific collapse in the season's final month and watched the St. Louis Cardinals overtake them for the wild card and, eventually, the World Series championship. They are one of two teams (the other one being, again, the Cubs) that has had nationwide television coverage thanks to Ted Turner's WTBS "superstation" (now Atlanta-only), and, therefore, one of the Majors' biggest fan bases.

* The '''Cincinnati Reds''': Cincy was the first city to have a Professional team (the Cincinnati Red Stockings), and although the current Reds aren't directly descended from that one (see: Atlanta Braves), the Reds are still generally considered the oldest club in the league (even though they aren't). Before [[Executive Meddling|TV ratings became important]], it was custom that the first game of every season take place in Cincy, and even today the Reds Home Opener is quite a big deal. The glory days of the Reds were the '70s, when they were called the ''Big Red Machine''. Current ESPN broadcaster Joe Morgan was a member of the Big Red Machine, and he won't let you forget it. Also had a bright spot in 1990, winning the World Series. Owned for a while by the [[Cloudcuckoolander|totally insane]] Marge Schott, famous for her racist tirades, collection of Nazi memorabilia, and devotion to her Saint Bernard, Schottzie.

* The '''Colorado Rockies''' began play in 1993 along with Florida. Based in Denver, which is by far the highest-altitude MLB city. This is important because the thin, dry air leads to balls flying out of the stadium regularly, leading to massively overinflated offensive statistics and some very miserable pitchers. This has lessened somewhat in recent years as the local grounds crew began storing game balls in a special humidor in the stadium. They have a strong fan base and have generally been a good team in recent years, including a rather spectacular 23-game winning streak in 2007 and a strong performance in that year's Series - they didn't win it, but they sure as hell didn't make themselves look bad, either.