*** VD 13 Commentary Thread ***

[The Feral Slasher]

Two pitchers with my first two picks in the mock. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

If Verlander had fallen one spot I would have taken DeGrom and Verlander 1/2

[The Feral Slasher]

Are you playing for the points league title?

I'm using it for head-to-head, points, rotoformat prediction and analysis. It's a unique league with only 3b and pitchers

[The Feral Slasher]

A generation of All-Star hitters lost because of your malfeasance...sad !

And I'm still struggling to hit .050, what a waste

[Kevin Seitzer]

I remember checking out my first library book 30+ years ago. It was a biography of Rod Carew

I remember checking out my first library book ~40 years ago. It was about fire engines.

[Kevin Seitzer]

And I'm still struggling to hit .050, what a waste

You should have read it five more times !

[The Feral Slasher]

I remember checking out my first library book ~40 years ago. It was about fire engines.

Probably fighting fires still !

[Ken]

Probably fighting fires still !

If they haven't stopped, they're fighting fires still.

[Ken]

You should have read it five more times !

That sounds like a recipe for a lot of clown nightmares.

[heyelander]

I think I checked that out of my local library like 40 years ago. I hope I returned it.

Read it at that age as well... It's probably still on my parent's bookshelf somewhere.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Read it at that age as well... It's probably still on my parent's bookshelf somewhere.

Between you and Feral, this explains the recent rise in strikeouts.

[Kevin Seitzer]

If they haven't stopped, they're fighting fires still.

lol..

[heyelander]

George Brett, subject of The Art of Hitting .300, by Charlie Lau

From today's article on Brett (the writing in these is great)

No. It wasn’t going to be easy. Brett went into a death-defying slump, hitless day after hitless day. By the end of the first month, he was hitting .216. His father reminded him nightly and with venom that he was blowing it, blowing the only chance he would ever get. George believed his father. He was such a wreck that when Royals manager Jack McKeon would scan the bench in search of a pinch-hitter, George would try to avoid eye contact just like a kid in grade school who doesn’t want to get called on by the teacher.

Then Charley Lau sat next to him on the team plane one day. Lau was a 41-year-old former catcher; he seemed so much older to George. Lau had been a .255 hitter in the major leagues, but he was an avid student of hitting, and by the end of his career, he had picked up a few ideas that he thought could help young hitters. He became a batting coach for wacky Charlie Finley in Oakland and in 1970, he helped the A’s offense emerge, led by his star pupil Joe Rudi (who hit .309).

“Charley Lau and I go back to 1953 in the Army,” A’s manager John McNamara said. “We’ve been good friends ever since, but even I didn’t know he was as smart as he is.”

Lau was crotchety and had a quick temper (he tried to start a fight with announcer Harry Caray once) and later would struggle with alcohol abuse. But he deeply cared for young hitters. On the plane that day, he said to Brett: “I’ve been watching you, George. You can be a good hitter. But it’s going to take an awful lot of work. If you give me your heart and soul, I’ll make you a great hitter.”

George didn’t know quite what to say to that. He wasn’t used to encouraging words like these. He also wasn’t used to taking advice. But he was at rock-bottom — “Do I listen to Charley if I was hitting .300? Hell no!” he would say — and he did want to be a great hitter. So he went to the cage to work with Lau and within five minutes — five stinking minutes! — he was suddenly roping line drives all over the park.

“Hey!” George shouted out in glee. “I got it!”

“You haven’t got anything, mullet head!” Lau grumped, and George shut up and listened. Together, over weeks and months and years, they built the eternal swing.

[heyelander]

Between you and Feral, this explains the recent rise in strikeouts.

If I remember it correctly, be advocated a downward swing (negative launch angle?) and releasing the bat with your trailing hand. I don't think either of those are followed today, and more your failing than Feral's and mine.

[Ken]

From today's article on Brett (the writing in these is great)

Haha.

You haven’t got anything, mullet head!

I'll definitely be using that.

[heyelander]

Haha.

You haven’t got anything, mullet head!

I'll definitely be using that.

Here's a couple of others for you from the article. Great parenting tips...

Fear drove George Brett. His father, Jack, made sure of that. There’s a piercing scene in the movie “I, Tonya,” in which Tonya Harding is trying to understand why her mother, LaVona, had been so cruel. “Did you ever love me?” Tonya asks.

“You think (skating champion) Sonja Henie’s mother loved her?” LaVona asks back. “Poor $&!@# you. I didn’t stay home making Apple Brown Betty. No, I made you a champion! Knowing you’d hate me for it! That’s the sacrifice a mother makes.”

There’s a famous story about the season Brett almost hit .400 — five hits short, as mentioned. When the season ended, George called his father like he always did and heard his father shout: “Do you mean to tell me you couldn’t have gotten five more !@#$*%^ hits?”

The trouble is that the story sounds funny. You can imagine Jack Brett joking as he said it, the crusty old man finally conceding in his own way that the son he’d been pounding and humiliating for a couple of decades had finally done good. It’s especially funny when comic strip punctuation marks replace the most important word.

But Jack Brett wasn’t joking. He didn’t actually say “!@#$*%^.” No, what he said was, “You couldn’t have gotten five more fucking hits?” with full emphasis on the expletive. Jack meant to tell his son that while other people might celebrate a .390 season and all that came with it, they both knew, deep down, in ways that no one else could, that George was, in the final summation, a failure. Five bleeping hits? Come on. Did he really try his best that game in Cleveland? Did he really run out the groundball in Baltimore? Did he really have to swing at that breaking ball in Boston?

They both knew the bleeping answer. He was soft. He was lazy. He was wasting the talent that God gave him. It was the same sad song.