Ok what was the best college basketball game you ever saw and why.

Not a question but a quick correction to the premise of a recent question you answered about the new extra innings rule carried over from 2020.  The writer claimed there were 4 extra innings games on opening day, all won by the home team in the bottom of the tenth.  In fact, the visiting Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Yankees in 10 innings.  I haven't yet decided whether I like the rule change or not.

Speaking Harmon Killebrew, Don Mincher and the Twins, I notice that in 1962 the Twins' eight regulars all played at least 144 games, and the only one who missed 600 plate appearances was Earl Battey, with 591. No one else on the team had more than 157 plate appearances (that was Mincher, by the way). I'd be willing to bet that no other team has ever used such a consistent lineup as that. Do you know of any others that might qualify?  

 

What was your opinion of Marge Schott as an Owner?  

I was always a Chamberlain man.  After he won the World Championship with the 76er's,  I swear I saw him pick up Luke Jackson 240, and Chet Walker 220 and put them on his shoulders.  I still don't believe it and I can't find any video of it.  I was at LAX late one Sunday night and I saw Wilt standing, leaning on a wall, dressed in red.  He looked open and approachable and I was too intimidated to go and talk to him.  My of my great regrets.  Especially since he died so young.  

 

 

Hey Bill!  

The Ewell Blackwell question, about  him appearing in All-Star Games during mundane seasons, got me to thinking. At that time, there seemed to be much more of a competitive element to the All-Star Game. These players wanted to win, and wanted to win badly. At that time, was there less emphasis on rewarding a good first half and more emphasis on "what kind of roster will help us win this one game?" If so, I can see an NL manager thinking that Blackwell could be a really good weapon to bring in for an inning or two against AL hitters who had never batted against him - more so than a traditional overhand thrower who was 8-2 at the all-star break. (I had a friend who once batted against Blackwell in a minor league game or an Army game or something like that. Said it was the most terrifying thing he ever saw. The ball looked like it was coming from third base. He got hit by the pitch, in his lower back, and said it felt like the ball was "screwing its way into my spine.")

HeyBill re: movies. I agree with you about The Searchers being overrated. In your movie reviews do you compare/contrast you rankings with some of many Top 100 lists ranking movies, like you did in the first BJHBA?  If so, what are the largest discrepancies between your list and others: that is, what movies to you rank way low or high compared to the 'consensus'?

Sorry if this is a common topic, but Re: Starting pitchers & Hall of Fame. Some players just fall short, but in my opinion, the massive changes in pitching throws the entire evaluation process upside down. Example: Innings pitched per start today v. 20 years ago, or 50 years ago. More jobs for pitchers is a good thing,..I guess. For me, they changes force me to shine a renewed appreciation for pitchers like Louis Tiant.  

 

Question: How do you adjust your sliding scale to compare pitchers from the 60's/70's v. 90's/00's v. 2020's?  C. Schilling's era pulled pitchers and used bullpens when compared to Tiant's era.  Tiant rarely got pulled when compared to Schilling. But compared to today, both were allowed to at least record & collect the wins. As time goes on, will Tiant's 229 wins look more and more attractive?  For me, that 3.30 ERA and .119 WHIP jumps off the page.

On valuing catchers:  We all know that no catcher is going to be behind the plate for 162 games.  That gives a shrewd manager chances to optimize their use.  Two ways to optimize would be to start your main guy in games vs your key division rival, and to start them in games that are more likely to be close.  You can rest your guy when you have your Ace going against the 5th place team in the other division(s), or when you have your 5th starter going vs their Ace.  

 

Is there any evidence that Managers do this sort of thing?

Hey Bill, a quick follow up on the ump’s blown call when Conforto leaned in to get hit by the pitch... Is there anything that constrains an ump from reversing a call that, a few seconds later, they understand that they must have blown? In this case, the ump conferenced with his fellow umps, and one would assume it dawned on him then, if not before, that he got his wires crossed since he was initially ringing Conforto up. Is there something specific that would have had to happen in the course of the conference to get him to reverse himself, like another ump saying "I saw it; he leaned in"?

HeyBill ... recent ending of Mets game on HBP on strike three. If the Mets end in a tie for the playoffs will this incident be called: "Conforto's Elbow" or "Kulpa's mea culpa" .... ala Merkle's Boner or Snodgrasses' Muff ??????

If you had only two data points, 1) a player's exact age, and 2) his OBP on the day he played his 400th MLB game, how accurately do you think you could predict his career OBP? Crapshoot?  As well as you can predict the weather six weeks from today? Within .010-020 OBP points?

Speaking of movies shot in terribly inappropriate locations and starring John Wayne, the 1969 version of TRUE GRIT was shot in Colorado and California, though the book (and both movies) is set in Arkansas and (eastern) Oklahoma. The movie locations look nothing like Arkansas and Oklahoma. (The later movie gets that part right. I think it's a very good movie, in very different ways, in both iterations.)  

 

The movies are very good, as I said, but the novel, by Charles Portis, is even better. And all of Portis' novels were very good. And funny. (I would call Portis "underrated" but he's been called "underrated" so much that by now I think he's pretty well "rated"!)

My special extra inning memory is also in St. Louis, in 1988. The Cards played the Mets on May 14. The game went into extra innings and in the 16th the Cards ran out of pitchers so Jose Oquendo (the "Secret Weapon" because he could play all nine positions) had to go in. He pitched 3 scoreless innings, and the Cards loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the 18th and couldn't score. Oquendo gave up 2 in the 19th and the Cards lost 7-5.  

 

My wife and I and our friends stuck out the whole game, which lasted (according to the box score) 5 hours and 40 minutes. It was fun and gripping while we were there, and it remains a special memory of 30 years later.

I got to see Wilt Chamberlain in action, just once. My high school's basketball coach managed to get some tickets for his team to see a game at Chicago Stadium, sometime during the 1967-68 NBA season. I was the team's scorekeeper and publicist, and was invited to go along. The Chicago Bulls were in the second year of their existence, and weren't given much chance against the Philadelphia 76ers. We had really nice seats, just a few rows back just behind one of the baskets.  

 

Chamberlain was in the playmaker phase of his career – he averaged just 24.3 points per game that season. However, Wilt was called for a couple of fouls that he strenuously disputed, and we could see that he was getting angry. Indeed he was, and he took it out on the Bulls.  

 

He cut loose and scored 68 points that night. Many of these were on impressive dunks, and when it was the basket at our end of the court, we noted how the iron supports would go on vibrating for a time after the score. (The Bulls lost 143-123.)