Update 1-23-2025
An Invitation, New Hall of Famers, and In Case You Missed the Miracle of 1937
If you missed Backroads and Ballplayers #89 which included an Evening with Terry Francona, and the lost story of the 1937 Travelers here is your second chance. Link
Before we get to a couple of end-of-week thoughts, I have an invitation I hope you will consider.
The Robinson-Kell Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) will have its winter meeting on February 1, in Bryant, Arkansas. Guests are welcome. In fact, there will likely be more guests in attendance than members.
While we urge you to consider the benefits of joining SABR, our most important goal is to build a community of Arkansans who love baseball, both past and present. The details of this upcoming meeting are listed below. Please join us for an afternoon of “talking baseball!”
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The next scheduled meeting of the Robinson-Kell SABR chapter will be Saturday, February 1, 2025, from 12:00 to 4:30 at First Southern Baptist Church in Bryant, AR. The address is 604 South Reynold Road, Bryant, AR.
The meeting will be at the left end of the building when entering the parking lot. Snacks and soft drinks will be provided. We do have to pay to use the room for non-church events, so $5 donations are encouraged.
The guest speaker at our meeting will be Mike Loggins.
Mike Loggins was an All-American outfielder for the Razorbacks from 1983-1985. In 1985, he was named an All-American and earned All-Southwest Conference honors in both 1984 and 1985. He finished his career with a .335 batting average, 159 hits, 261 total bases, 132 runs, 108 RBIs, and 19 home runs.
The Crossett (Ark.) native was a valuable offensive threat for the Razorbacks while locking down the outfield for three seasons. He was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the third round of the 1985 draft and played seven seasons in professional baseball.
Loggins’ talk will be followed by presentations by members. Please share this message. Guests are welcome.
Hall of Fame Selects Three
Ichiro Suzuki, C. C. Sabathia, and Billy Wagner are the latest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ichiro and C. C. were on the BBWAA ballot for the first time, and this was Wagner’s last chance on the writers’ ballot.
The almost 400 writers chose an interesting threesome of guys whose credentials seem more like players from my generation than the swing-plane-conscious hitters and six-inning starting pitchers prominent in today’s game.
Ichiro hit a lot of ground balls. Remember our 1960s and 1970s coaches liked those. He even hit to the opposite field, a habit now corrected in travel team leagues. He played like a Japanese Ty Cobb with a better temperament and a training routine that did not include spike sharpening. Name a player in today’s game who reminds you of Ichiro.
C. C. Sabathia retired with 38 complete games in a 19-year career. While that may seem like a modest total, last year’s Cy Young Award winners, Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal combined for, let’s see…zero, in the 2024 season. Skubal has yet to pitch one in his career. I would assume BaseballReference.com might remove that irrelevant stat any day now.
Neither Skubal nor Sale pitched 200 innings. C. C. accomplished that workload eight times. The Hall of Fame’s unwritten threshold for Wins, Innings Pitched, Complete Games, and Shutouts is about to undergo a serious reexamination.
By the way, who was the guy who did not vote for Ichiro Suzuki? We probably will never know that. Ichiro can take some unneeded consolation in the fact that he got a higher percentage of the vote than Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth.
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