Author: Graham Womack

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The 10 best pitchers turned position players in baseball

1. Babe Ruth: Easily the most successful example of this transition, although unlike most of the other men here, Ruth did not salvage his career by switching from pitcher to full-time outfielder. He won 89 games before, all prior to his 25th birthday and might have won 300 had he stayed on the mound. But the rest is 714 home runs of history. Interestingly, Ruth pitched five games in his later career as publicity stunts. He went 5-0 in these appearances, twice hurling complete games, including in 1933 at 38.

2. Lefty O’Doul: If only O’Doul discovered he could hit sooner. First, he floundered as a pitcher in parts of four seasons. After a five year break, O’Doul resurfaced at 31 as an outfielder and compiled a .349 lifetime batting average, fourth highest all-time. With a full career, O’Doul would have been a Hall of Famer.

3. Rube Bressler: Bressler went 10-4 with a 1.77 ERA for the Philadelphia Athletics as a rookie in 1914 and hurt his arm. He pitched where he could the next six seasons before suffering a final injury in 1920. “This time I decided the thing to do was give up the pitching business and take up the hitting business,” Bressler told Lawrence Ritter in The Glory of Their Times. “Why not? Other guys could hit. Why not me?” Bressler played 12 more seasons and finished with a .301 lifetime average in 1932.

4. Bobby Darwin: Like O’Doul, Darwin pitched sparingly — one game in 1962, three in 1969 — before establishing himself years later as an outfielder. He began his second career in 1971, became an everyday player the following year and hit 65 home runs his first three full seasons. Alas, he also led the American League in strikeouts those years.

5. Rick Ankiel: He began as a 19-year-old hurler for St. Louis in 1999 and inexplicably lost his ability to pitch two years later. Ankiel spent most of the next six years out of the majors before rejoining the Cardinals in 2007 as an outfielder. He hit 25 home runs in 2008 and the feel good story was marred only by revelations he took HGH (supposedly on doctor’s orders.)

6. Smoky Joe Wood: The Rick Ankiel of his time, Wood went 34-5 for Boston in 1912, then his arm died. He toiled for five subsequent years and then became an outfielder with Cleveland. Wood played five seasons in the field, never managing much power, though he bowed out hitting .297 with eight triples in 1922.

7. Stan Musial: Signed with the St. Louis Cardinals organization as a pitcher in 1938, went 33-13 over the next three years, including 18-5 with a 2.62 ERA for Daytona Beach in 1940. However, Musial hurt his arm and was converted into an outfielder before his major league debut the following year.

8. Mark McGwire: Converted from a pitcher to a position player while at USC, later became a power hitter with Oakland.

9. Dave Kingman: Ditto.

10. Ted Williams: Williams would rate higher here, but there was never any doubt he would make it as a hitter. That being said, he pitched occasionally in high school and signed as a pitcher-outfielder with the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League. “I got knocked around a little bit, and they forgot about my pitching,” Williams recounted years later in a 1978 episode of the TV show, Greatest Sports Legends. Williams pitched once in the big leagues, throwing two innings one day in 1940 with the Red Sox, scattering three hits and one run, with one strikeout.

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The Hall of Limited Fame: The Inaugural Class

I had my first meeting on Saturday as a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and this site came up in conversation with the group. While we waited for others to arrive for our breakfast at Lefty O’Doul’s in San Francisco, I mentioned my most popular post here, The 10 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame. Our chapter president asked if I included O’Doul, and she scoffed when I said no. I understand my words could be seen as blasphemy, especially given where we were at or the fact that we’re the Lefty O’Doul Chapter, but the man isn’t a Hall of Famer in my book.

O’Doul falls into an interesting class of ballplayers: Those men who were brilliant for short stretches. Their chances for Cooperstown are slim because, as late, great Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray noted in a 1978 column, “The baseball writers are sometimes loathe to reward a guy for a single, incandescent, virtuoso performance over one season. They prefer a guy who keeps doing a predictable thing over and over again. Henry Aaron, who piled up 755 home runs, 30 to 40 at a time over 20 years, will go in the hall by acclamation. Roger Maris, who hit 61 one season, more than anyone ever hit in one  season, will never make it.” And the Veteran’s Committee won’t help much either, as it does little for modern era players besides tabbing those who fell just short with the writers.

Perhaps the answer is giving O’Doul and his cohorts a Hall of Fame of their own, a place to honor men who may not have been Cooperstown-worthy their entire careers but played like it for at least a few seasons. I think this could make a great Web site, and if anyone wants to handle design, I’d be happy to write copy. The place could be called Cooperstown II, or better yet, Mini-Cooperstown. Until that comes to be, here are ten men who could be honored:

Player Claim to fame Highest percentage of Hall of Fame vote
Dom DiMaggio
Number three on my list of the ten best players not in the Hall of Fame, DiMaggio is a member of the Hitters Hall of Fame at the Ted Williams Museum and is considered one of the greatest defensive outfielders. Williams had a pamphlet for years in his museum detailing why DiMaggio deserved Hall of Fame enshrinement. His Cooperstown bid was hurt because he played just ten full seasons, missing three years to World War II.
11.3 percent (1973, 9th ballot)
Nomar Garciaparra
Looked like a sure-bet Hall of Famer his first four full seasons, culminating with his .372 year in 2000. He missed most of the next season injured, though, and was never again the same dominant player.
Not yet eligible
Dwight Gooden
Had more wins before his 25th birthday (100) than after (94) when his career fell apart. That would seem to be a dubious record of some sort, but every pitcher on this list shares that distinction.
3.3 percent (2006, 1st ballot)
Roger Maris
His lifetime numbers of 275 home runs and a .260 batting average are pedestrian, but when Maris shined, he shined bright. American League Most Valuable Player in 1960 and again in 1961 when he hit 61 home runs. He deserves enshrinement for what he endured in the latter season alone.
43.1 percent (1988, 15th ballot)
Denny McLain
Like Gooden, won more games before 25 than after. Became the first man in 34 years to win at least 30 games, with his MVP and Cy Young season in 1968. McLain won another Cy Young in 1969 but never again had a winning season thereafter, between arm troubles and rumors he associated with gamblers and underworld figures. He was gone from the majors by 29 and later went to prison on a RICO conviction.
0.7 percent (1979, 2nd ballot)
Lefty O’Doul
Struggled as a pitcher, with a 1-1 lifetime record and 4.87 ERA, bouncing out of the big leagues at 26. Resurfaced five years later as an outfielder and, short of Babe Ruth, is probably the most successful player to make this transition. .349 lifetime average, fourth-highest all-time, with 1140 hits; hit .398 in 1929, .383 in 1930 and .368 in 1932.
16.7 (1960, 9th ballot)
Riggs Stephenson
His .336 lifetime batting average is 22nd all-time, but he was a utility player most of his career and had 500 plate appearances only four times. In those seasons, though, Stephenson hit .362, .344 and .324 (twice.) The ad on his Baseball Reference page calls him, “The greatest baseball player who is NOT in the Hall of Fame!” and I wrote a post in January exploring this.
1.5 percent (1960, 3rd ballot)
Fernando Valenzuela
One word: Fernandomania. The southpaw swept into Los Angeles and the majors with his Cy Young and Rookie of the Year season in 1981 and thrived up through a 21-11 year in 1986. However, he was never as effective thereafter. Assuming he was being truthful about his age– and there has been debate on this– Valenzuela is like McLain and Gooden: He won more games before 25 than after.
6.2 percent (2003, 1st ballot)
Maury Wills
Wills didn’t reach the majors until he was 26 and did his best work his first six full seasons. He led the National League in steals each of those years and was MVP in 1962 when he stole 104 bases and broke a record set by Ty Cobb in 1915. Jim Murray wrote in the 1978 column, “Will someone please tell me why Rabbit Maranville is in the Hall of Fame and Maury Wills isn’t?”
40.6 percent (1981, 4th ballot)
Smoky Joe Wood
Went 34-5 in 1912, and as he told Lawrence Ritter years later in The Glory of Their Times, “That was it, right then and there. My arm went bad the next year and all my dreams came tumbling down around my ears like a damn house of cards. The next five years, seems like it was nothing but one long terrible nightmare.” Wood still won 117 games in his career, all before age 25. Like O’Doul and Ruth, he later played in the outfield, albeit with more modest results.
18 percent (1947, 6th ballot)


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This blog turns one, or: 10 things I’ve learned in the last year

It’s hard to believe, but I wrote my first post a year ago today. It’s amazing what a year can do.

If I knew then what I know now that I didn’t know then (say that three times fast), I might be amazed. And I still have a lot to learn. That being said, I want to offer a list to anyone who’s just starting out or needs a refresher. Here are some things I’ve learned in the past year:

1. Google Analytics

This lets me track how many people come to my site and how long they’re here, among other things. In other words, it’s great for gauging what’s working and what isn’t. Hard to believe, but I never knew of Google Analytics before I started working a software sales job last June.

2. Quantcast

This is the most accurate external measuring tool for my site stats I’ve found. As of today, Quantcast says I get 892 unique monthly visitors. People who blog for a living get upwards of 25,000. I think I’d like 3,000, which seems attainable in the foreseeable future. Anything more, and I might need to be blogging full-time. On a side note, I’ve also learned of Alexa and Compete in the last year, but my ratings there embarrass me and are possibly inaccurate, so I’m not providing links.

3. The value of getting sites to link up

Baseball Musings linked to one of my posts in January, and I got 80-100 extra visitors to my site. Since then, I’ve worked hard to craft a few entries worthy of additional links, which isn’t easy since the man who runs that site has high standards. That’s a good thing, though: It makes it that much sweeter when he does link me up.

4. The importance of writing well and writing often

I cannot stress this enough. When I started, I figured I’d write once a week. A friend suggested every day. My friend had the right idea. With the help of Quantcast, I’ve learned I attract more regular readers when I post often. While I think the most important thing for a blog is excellent writing, providing this original, quality material on a near-constant basis doesn’t rank far behind.

5. The 80/20 rule applies

I heard my boss say something to the effect, not long ago, that 20 percent of work produces 80 percent of results and vice versa. The ratio may be even more skewed with this site. Out of the 150 or so posts I’ve written, I have three, maybe four that get me the bulk of my traffic off of search engines. I write often with the tacit understanding that over time, little will be remembered.

6. The importance of reading other bloggers

Blogging, I’ve found, is little more than an advanced form of social media. I can write and entertain my friends, and a certain number of people will find me off search engines. From there, some of my most loyal readers are other bloggers who I’ve reached out to and vice versa. They read my entries, I read theirs and everyone’s happy.

7. Don’t take anything personally

There are millions of other blogs. I’m just one. I knew this a year ago, but it bears repeating. Most people have probably never heard of this site, and out of those that have, there are probably some who don’t care for it. That’s fine. End of day, I write because something feels missing in my life when I don’t do it.

Then there are the things I’ve learned just in the last week:

8. How to add a Twitter widget to my site (I learned how to do that on Thursday)

9. How to add a blogroll and list of cool sites (I finally learned how to do that Friday afternoon, months after assembling some links)

10. How to get my blog indexed in Blog Catalog, a free indexing site. There are many free tools on the Internet for promoting a blog. I encourage anyone to take advantage of them.

When I started this blog, I didn’t know how long it would last or if I would follow through on it. I feel established now, and I look forward to what the future holds. Honestly, I feel I’ve only scratched the surface on what’s possible. I want to thank everyone who’s supported this site. Knowing anyone cares to read me is tremendously gratifying and makes maintaining this site so much easier and more enjoyable. In the words of Michael Scott, “You guys are the reason that I went into the paper business.”

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My attempt to interview Bernie Carbo today

As faithful readers will know, I have been offered a chance to contribute to a Where Are They Now section on a Web site called Baseball Savvy. The section is made up of features catching up with former ballplayers, not Hall of Famers necessarily, but the Vida Blues and Bill Madlocks of the sport. I have been looking for a good first player to profile, and today, I almost interviewed Bernie Carbo. In fact, I spoke to him twice.

Fans may remember Carbo as the Boston Red Sox outfielder who hit a game-tying, three-run homer against the Cincinnati Reds in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, paving the way for Carlton Fisk to hit a walk-off shot in the bottom of the 12th. It’s arguably the greatest baseball game ever (it gets my vote), and the home run gave Carbo his fifteen minutes of fame. Rather improbably, he now seems to be having a second fifteen minutes, albeit for different reasons. On April 1, the Boston Globe published a story where Carbo said, “I played every game high.”

In the article, Carbo detailed addictions to cocaine, marijuana and other drugs during his career and after, saying he’s been clean for fifteen years and that he now runs an evangelical Christian ministry. Needless to say, his words went viral, though I didn’t think to seek him out in my search for a suitable interview subject.

Instead, I put in a call this afternoon to Dave McCarthy, executive director of Ted Williams Museum, a past subject here, hoping he could pass my number on to Will Clark, who was inducted into the museum’s Hitters Hall of Fame in February. McCarthy declined, saying he enjoys good relationships with players because he doesn’t pester them. I said I understood and asked as a throwaway question if McCarthy knew of any good players for me to talk to. To my surprise, he threw out Carbo’s name and said he could get him for me. He said he needed Carbo’s okay and asked me to call back in an hour. When I did that, McCarthy gave me Carbo’s cell phone number.

I was given the number with the understanding Carbo wouldn’t be available to talk straightaway and that I could arrange to interview him at another time. I called and got a voice mail which offered two other numbers for Carbo. When those numbers led to voice mails as well, I called the cell again, intending to leave a message. This time, however, Carbo picked up. We spoke briefly and agreed to talk at 7 this evening.

I got permission to leave work a couple hours early and went home to read the Globe story, do some research and prepare questions. By 7, I had a couple of pages of questions prepared (such as: How did you manage a .387 career on-base percentage under the influence?) but the interview didn’t come off.

I called at the appointed time, Carbo picked up, and we exchanged pleasantries. Carbo seemed to get spooked, though, when I asked if I could use a recorder, a question I typically ask interview subjects. Carbo wanted to know who I was, what I was doing this for, and how I knew McCarthy, so I spelled it out. He wanted to know what I would be asking about, so I gave him an idea of my questions. Carbo then said ESPN and the 700 Club will be airing interviews of him in the next few weeks. In fact, he said he shot three hours of footage with ESPN today. He also told me he assured these outlets he wouldn’t give the story out ahead of time. He also said something to effect that he still wasn’t sure how this story was going to play out with the public.

Thus, Carbo asked for my name and number and said he would call me in mid-May. I fear either Carbo will get an adverse reaction to one of the big interviews or that the story will have been beaten to death by the time we talk. Still, he seems nice enough to not write off entirely. Upon hearing my last name, Carbo asked if I was related to a man he went to high school with; when I mentioned the Hitters Hall of Fame, he asked if Shoeless Joe was a member.

(Postscript: Actually, he didn’t want to talk to me.)

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News on the baseball writing front

A couple of cool things happened for me baseball writing-wise this week.

First, as regular readers may know, I joined the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America on Wednesday. Since then, I have been talking with the head of the group, and he has invited me to write for a Where Are They Now section on his Web site. It sounds perfect for me, since I love talking to old ballplayers. I have a tentative first assignment to interview Gino Cimoli, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and was the first man to come to bat on the West Coast, after the Giants and Dodgers moved west.

While perusing the “Where Are They Now” section to see what the articles look like and who’s already been written about, I noticed a feature on one of the three former teammates of Joe Marty that are still living. As faithful readers here will know, I began research in January for a book on Marty, who played in the majors from 1937-41, and I interviewed another of the ex-teammates in February. I haven’t had any luck getting the other two men on the phone, but seeing the “Where Are They Now” feature gave me some hope to try again.

Thus, I called and spoke with this man’s son, asked about arranging a phone interview, and offered to send questions for preparation as I did with the other player. I wouldn’t normally do this as a journalist, but I’m willing to make exceptions if my interview subject is over 90, as all three of these players are. The son was fine with this and said he and his dad would do what they could for me. I put a list of 30 questions in the mail yesterday along with my callback number and am keeping my fingers crossed that this comes off.

I am deliberately not posting the names of these players for search engine purposes, but this particular player is somewhat well-known and is the last living person to have played in a game with a man who hit 714 home runs (again, I word it that way for search engine purposes, please don’t leave an “Aha” type comment.) Basically, it would be awesome if I get this interview.

As I’ve said before here, I feel like I’m getting to take part in something greater than myself with this project. I’m also starting to feel it has historical importance. I typically use a 90-minute digital recorder for interviews and wind up having to delete old interviews when I need space for new ones. It’s unfortunate– in the last couple of years, some of the interviews I’ve deleted include Oliver Stone and Jose Canseco (a full transcript of my Canseco interview, though, can be found here.) I want to keep a record of everyone I talk to for this project, especially if the book gets published. Thus, I bought a tape recorder, batteries and a ten-pack of tapes yesterday and spent over an hour in the evening getting the interview from February transferred over.

To say the least, I’m excited about what lies ahead.

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Some baseball blogs I follow

As a baseball blogger, I’ve begun to make a point in the past several months of reading other baseball blogs. Besides building links to this site whenever I leave comments (where I can offer insight, of course– nobody likes a spammer), I also find some of the material I come across fairly entertaining. Plus, it seems only right that if I’m blindly asking people to read my work, the least I can do is take five or ten minutes a day to follow suit.

Thus, I’ve started to build up a list of baseball blogs that I follow. If I ever get a blogroll going on my home page, the following links will probably be included:

Baseball Musings: The number-one ranked baseball blog for Google. This guy occasionally links me up if I write a killer post, send him a link (don’t bother offering him hastily-written crap, it doesn’t work), and the stars align. The reward is generally 50-100 extra visitors to my site.

Only Baseball Matters: A blog mostly on the San Francisco Giants by an extremely dry observer.

Extra Baggs: Another Giants blog, this one by their beat writer for the San Jose Mercury News.

Dear (Tommy) John Letters: Kind of like the Paul Shirley of baseball bloggers, i.e. another entertaining writer/sometimes athlete.

Babes Love Baseball: I learned of these ladies on Twitter when I did a search on baseball blogs. My ideal woman loves baseball so I was drawn in. I found that the writing on the site is sharp and well-informed as well.

DMB Historic World Series Replay: This guy knows a lot about the early history of baseball, occasionally can be found in the comments section here and was kind enough to give me a shout out on his site. Hence, I am doing the same.

My First Cards: I mentioned this guy (one of my regular readers) and his blog on 1982 Topps baseball cards in my last post, so I won’t be too redundant, besides to say I find this site fun and informative.

SPORTSADVISOR: This guy, another regular here, clearly loves sports and claims to have struck out Albert Pujols twice back in high school.

Giants Galore: Plug for myself. The group blog on the San Francisco Giants that I was tapped to be a part of has started to take off. I would encourage people to keep an eye on it, especially if the Giants make a pennant run.

This is by no means a list of every blog that I follow. If you are a blogger and feel I missed you, please leave a comment, and I will try to say something nice.

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Another week, another group: I join the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America

With less than a week having passed since I joined the Society for American Baseball Research, I signed up online today to be a member of another group I’ve been eying, the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America.

Launched July 4, 2009 in Los Angeles, the IBWAA is an alternative to the old-guard Baseball Writers Association of America. That group celebrated its 100-anniversary in 2008, votes each year on who gets into the Hall of Fame, and only recently started letting online writers be part of its member body. Before that, the group was restricted to newspaper and magazine sportswriters, and members still must pay dues for ten years before getting a Hall of Fame vote.

I may or may not eventually get into the BBWAA depending on if I attempt another foray into sportswriting (I briefly clerked on the sports desk of the Sacramento Bee a few years ago.) However, the IBWAA allows any baseball writer on the Internet to join for a yearly fee of $20 and accepts PayPal. As I mentioned in my entry about joining SABR, I have recovered financially in the past couple of months and I’m looking for ways to promote this blog and meet other baseball followers. Thus, it was an easy decision and simple two-minute process to join, no rigorous application or vetting process. It goes without saying that I know I joined the right group for me.

I first read of the IBWAA through a fellow blogger, Devon Young, when he wrote in late December about filling out his Hall of Fame ballot as a group member. Devon and I are both small, independent operations, near as I can tell (unless My First Cards is actually a ghost blog by Monsanto.) I enjoy Devon’s writing, as fun and informative as a blog about baseball cards should be, and I like to think I keep some people entertained. Still, neither of us commands vast legions of followers. The IBWAA is seemingly designed for guys like us. We get a symbolic voice in baseball awards, as well as great exposure and a chance to build credentials.

That being said, there are some names in the group. The founding IBWAA class included David Pinto of Baseball Musings, one of the most-read baseball blogs, as well as journalists from the Orange County Register, Los Angeles Daily News and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among others. A senior writer at Sports Illustrated and baseball author named Peter Golenbock also joined recently. And with the blogosphere continuing to evolve and become more legitimized, the IBWAA should only keep growing and attracting big names. As it stands, I think the IBWAA is already more to date with the times than the BBWAA.

I’m happy to be getting in early and look forward to the many benefits like getting to cast the symbolic Hall of Fame ballot in about eight months. The group’s stated purpose is to eventually get a real Hall of Fame vote. It’d be pretty awesome if that happens while I’m a member.

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Why the baseball draft is worse than the NFL Draft or NBA Draft

Unlike football and basketball where I eagerly await the drafts each year, study mock drafts in the weeks and months before, and try to envision who my favorite teams will select, I don’t feel the same anticipation with baseball.

I can’t remember the last time I cared to read a mock First-Year Player Draft in baseball. Where the NFL Draft is a multiple-day affair on ESPN, and the NBA Draft is known for blockbuster trades and some truly hideous fashions (it’s the sports equivalent of the red carpet at the Oscars), the baseball draft only recently started being televised, having previously been conducted via conference call. In football or basketball, a Top-10 draft choice is almost a lock to become a veteran if not a regular All Star. In baseball, No. 1 overall picks occasionally don’t make it out of the minor leagues.

I’ve briefly compared the drafts before, but with the NFL Draft a week away, I decided to go deeper. With my day off work on Friday, I spent a few hours analyzing the top ten picks of every MLB, NFL and NBA draft from 1990 through 1999. My goal? Determine how many of these picks went on to play at least five years.

Here’s what I found:

Top-10 picks from 1990-1999 who played at least five years All Stars Never played in the league
NBA 96 (out of 100 men picked) 41 0
NFL 91 (out of 100 men picked) 52 0
MLB 70 (out of 99 men picked (J.D. Drew was a Top-10 pick two years)) 28 17


There are a few reasons baseball doesn’t draft as well. Baseball tends to draft younger players, and the minors, which don’t exist to the same degree in football or basketball, can be an abyss. Football and basketball teams usually select pro-ready players who debut months later, while baseball clubs draft for potential and have no problem keeping prospects in their farm system for two or three seasons, sometimes longer. One reason I capped my analysis at 1999 is that ballplayers occasionally spend five years or more in the minors before going on to long careers.

Almost any year in the Nineties shows abysmal baseball draft results. Alex Rodriguez was the top overall pick in 1993, as he should have been. The remainder of the top ten that year reads like an independent league roster: Darren Dreifort, Brian Anderson, Wayne Gomes, Jeff Granger, Steve Soderstrom, Trot Nixon, Kirk Presley, Matt Brunson and Brooks Kieschnick. None were All Stars and two men never played in the majors; Billy Wagner, Derrek Lee, Chris Carpenter and Torii Hunter were among the next ten picks. In fact, good players often come much later. Albert Pujols was a 13th round pick his year, Matt Holliday was a 7th rounder and Ryan Howard was a 5th rounder.

In every baseball draft from 1990-1999, at least one player or two among the top ten picks never made the majors, including Brien Taylor, the No. 1 pick in the 1991 draft. In 1999, four of the top ten picks never played in the big leagues, and that number would have been five had the top pick from that year, Josh Hamilton not finally debuted in 2007 after battling drug addiction. As it stands, Hamilton won’t have five years of experience until next season.

Don’t get me wrong, the NBA and NFL drafts aren’t perfect either, far from it. I think basketball might have the worst draft lottery in sports, with the worst teams having a better chance of landing the fourth, fifth or sixth pick each year than one in the top three. In football, top draft picks often make more than established players, and teams tend to draft a player high and then trade him for a low-round pick a few years later, even if he’s performing decently. If I were a football team, I’d stockpile low-round draft picks and use them to ply proven players from guileless teams.

That being said, I still think the baseball draft sucks.

Related post: An argument in favor of the Reserve Clause

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About five years overdue: I join the Society for American Baseball Research

I did something today that I have wanted to do for the past few years and joined the Society for American Baseball Research. For those who don’t know, it is a research society for people who like to read, write and talk about baseball (I like to do all three.) I attended a lunch meeting in Sacramento on my birthday in 2004 and was home. Never before have I been in a room with so many fellow baseball geeks, intimidating though it was when a trivia quiz was given early in the lunch, and I finished in the middle of the pack. I’m used to being the guy who amazes my friends and co-workers by knowing things like who won the World Series in 1961 and Babe Ruth’s career batting average. To a SABR member, such knowledge is equivalent to $100 questions on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Since attending the 2004 meeting, I’ve wanted to become a  SABR member, but for the most part, have been financially constrained or otherwise distracted. I’m starting to get above water with my new job, though, so I decided to take the plunge today. It took five minutes to fill in my credit card info on the SABR Web site, and I am now a SABR member through December 31 of this year. It only cost me $45, since it’s already April and I’m under 30, which qualifies me for some discounts.

The membership should get me connected with other baseball lovers, a good thing since I tend to isolate left to my own devices. I signed up to be in a research group on minor league baseball and elected to be in two chapters: the Lefty O’Doul one in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live, as well as the Sacramento group, since I’ve begun research on a book about a player from there, Joe Marty. I will also have access to a wealth of SABR research materials online, which are restricted from non-members, and I’m hoping I might be able to get this blog indexed on the SABR site.

Anyhow, expect more SABR-related posts as I begin to attend meetings.