In the middle of last night’s misery, I was looking for a good piece of trivia to send out, and I think I stumbled on one. You can go reply on Twitter if you want, but I’ll ask it here and give you the answer at the bottom of this post.
*cues Jeopardy music*
You’ll want to read about the clubhouse fight between the Mariners Dee Gordon and Jean Segura, not because the details of the fight, itself, are particularly salacious or anything, but for the odd way it began. Apparently, after a game, Gordon walked up to reporters in the clubhouse and kindly asked them to step outside. Reporters, assuming there was simply some sort of team meeting or something, obliged. But moments later “the once-closed doors to the clubhouse crashed open,” revealing the fighting duo and the six players trying to pull them off. I don’t know why, but I find the fact that Gordon first calmly asked the reporters to leave first pretty funny. When asked for comment, all players responded with a version of “what happens in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse.” Heh. Good for you guys, I guess.
At Yahoo Sports, Jeff Passan takes an excellent, but disappointing look into the ongoing strife between Major League Baseball and the Players Union, a relationship which seems to be at something close to an all-time low. Indeed, there are almost unbelievable levels of distrust and contentiousness between the two sides, including union members going behind the league’s back after the latter created a program which incentivized Latin American “buscones” and their players from pushing and taking performance enhancing drugs as 15 and 16 year olds. It’s pretty unbelievable stuff. Fantastic story, though.
A pretty odd “only in 2018” story out of San Diego today, as Wil Myers was caught on tape complaining about his manager Andy Green and the extra defensive drills he was forcing the team to do in September of a losing season. But it’s not the controversy/complaints that are especially interesting, it’s how Myers was caught. The teammate Myers was complaining to, Carlos Asuaje, was live streaming himself (presumably on Twitch) as he played Fortnite. Which, just … seriously that sentence wouldn’t have made any sense like 2 years ago.
Before this year, Jose Abreu has hit at least 25 home runs and collected at least 100 RBI in each of his first four seasons in MLB. Right now, he stands at 22 homers and 78 RBI, but a freak injury will likely prevent him from continuing his impressive streak. “It was one of my testicles turned sideways and was strangled,” he said through a team translator. “The doctor had to perform emergency surgery to save it. I never thought about it, but it was serious.” Abreu expects to return by the end of the week, but he needs 22 RBI in three weeks to reach his goal. Honestly, I’ll be rooting for that. Go get ’em, man.
Jeff Passan takes the latest look into the disconnect between the desire to keep good prospects like Eloy Jimenez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. down long enough to secure another year of team control, despite their apparent MLB readiness. Having gone through this with Kris Bryant, I know you’re all quite aware of the issues, but know that the problem persists and it is just another huge point of contention between the league and union. I really appreciate Passan’s position vehemently against this practice BUT ALSO the acknowledgment that it’s “clearly the right strategy for all teams, particularly rebuilding ones.” It should be a major topic of discussion in the next CBA (like it should have been in the last one …. )
I am not sure how I feel about this one, but this is one of the funniest scandals(?) in baseball in a while. On Monday night, you may recall, Todd Frazier made an excellent diving catch into the stands at Dodger Stadium, only he didn’t actually make the catch. He grabbed another ball on his way down and presented that to the umpire, who gave the out signal … and that ball was a “rubber” ball for children. Yeah. After showing the ump, Frazier tosses the ball back into the stands and that’s that. LOL.
At CBS Sports, Matt Snyder takes a really fun/interesting look into what Jacob deGrom would need to do to break the modern-day ERA record, which technically is within reach. It’d be extremely tough, but he can do it.
At the Washington Post, the story of one former 30-year-old rookie, whose debut was washed away by rain and whose number would ultimately never be called again will give you the feels. “It’s brutal. You have this moment you’ve worked your entire career for, and it literally gets washed away. It’s tragic.”
Not only do these two Minor Leaguers look absolutely identical … they have the exact same name:
Honestly … wtf? That is some glitch-in-the-‘Matrix’ stuff right there.
And finally, the answer to the question is …. Jon Lester (5 All-star selections) Daniel Murphy (3 All-star selections, 2 Silver Sluggers) and Anthony Rizzo (3 All-star selections, 1 Gold Glove, 1 Silver Slugger). Yu Darvish, Cole Hamels, and Kris Bryant are all tied behind them with four awards/honors each.
NEWSLETTER
