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Every fan of baseball history knows the story of Merkle’s Boner. The 19-year kid who failed to touch second base on the game winning hit which forced the one-game playoff between the Cubs and Giants back in 1908.

But what is lesser known is that if Merkle had touched second and the Giants had won, that would have given Christy Mathewson the victory. He would have ended up with 374 wins which would have given him sole possesion of 3rd place on the all-time wins list.

As it turned out, he is tied with Grover Alexander with 373.

Consider this scenario: The traditional favorites New York Yankees are facing the the lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Yankee Stadium. Going for the Yanks is future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson. Pitching for Tampa Bay? Hideo Nomo whose ERA is higher than the sun and just gave up 8 runs in 2 innings in his last start. To top it off, New York is just coming off a huge 19-8 defeat of Tampa Bay the day before.

A certain recipe for victory for NY?

Wrong!

Hideo managed to hold the Yanks to one run in 5 2/3 innings for his second win of the season. Johnson, on the other hand, was lit up for 6 runs in 7 1/3 innings thanks in part to Eduardo Perez’ 2 HRs.

After his fantastic night, ARod was 0 for 4 with 3 LOB.

Who knows? I may be wrong about Nomo. This is his second start this season where he’s only given up one run.

There’s a new baseball database online that’s quite extensive and powerful. You can access daily hitting and pitching logs as well as compare them to other players. You can sort by home-road, by park, vs. team etc.

It uses data from Retrosheet and uses an engine designed by Statguru over at Baseball Musings.

Click here for the database entry point.

Frank Robinson doesn’t seem to happy with the coverage the Nats are getting on ESPN. This comes to a head after he watched SportsCenter Monday night after their 7-3 come-from-behind victory.

I guess he expected more than the “one-swing” coverage his team got. ESPN spokesperson assured him that the Nat’s coverage is consistent with what other teams are getting. She ended with:

“We’re glad that Frank tunes to ESPN for his baseball news,”

Ooh! I bet Robinson’s canceling his ESPN channel after that one.

So it’s not just me. I was starting to wonder if complete games by starting pitchers are up this year. I was at the verge of looking up the stats until I noticed that David Pinto had already done so at Baseball Musings. Ten complete games as of April 16.

In short, David wonders if it’s a direct correlation to the low save percentage of teams’ bullpens. But check out the posting yourself. He’s got a cool historical graph showing CG/Start that’s worth a look.

There’s a new independent minor league this year. The Golden Baseball League is based out of California and Pat Sajak of Wheel of Fortune fame is one of the investors.

According to their web site, their schedule begins by the end of May. Last Saturday, potential fans could secure their seat for upcoming games with the awkwardly named Pick Your Seat Saturday event. Maybe the ad people could have come up with a better name for this, eh?

Anyone who took a chance on Brian Roberts in their fantasy draft has got to be smiling now. So far, he is leading the league in BA and SB and second in HR. Not to mention the fact that he is a secondbasemen, a pretty weak position in this year’s MLB talent pool.

I love this quote in regards to Roberts.

“I used to applaud him for hitting a homer in batting practice and that was in spring training three weeks ago,” Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons told The (Baltimore) Sun.”

His previous high in homers is 5 and he’s already reached that.

So Todd Walker of the Cubs has been put on the 15-day DL. Word has it that he will be replaced by Neifi Perez at second. This may not be a bad thing at least according to those at Cub Town who make the argument that no matter what you think of Perez, he’s done one heckuva job since coming to Wrigley.

Wow! Vinny Castilla is on a roll. Thursday, he missed a cycle by a base hit. Tonight, he missed it by a triple. He went 3-3 with a double, homerun and 4 rbis.

The grand total for his last two games:
6 for 6 with 2 doubles, 1 triple, 2 homeruns, and 8 rbis.

By no coincidence, the Nats won both games.

Anyone with Castilla on their fantasy team have to pretty pleased right now.

John Smoltz is now 0-3 for the Braves. At least he pitched a decent game, allowing only 2 runs in 7 innings.

I have a buddy who thinks it’s career suicide for Smoltz to be put back in the rotation after so much success in the pen. I know it’s early but so far this season’s seem to validate that.

His thinking is that at Smoltz’ age, his arm can only take so much after pitching <100 innings/year. Besides why tinker with what works? Smoltz was dominant as a reliever the past couple years. Time will tell how he does this year as a starter.