This was from Jayson Stark of ESPN.com...a few strange but true incidents in Major League Baseball in 2008...
Strangest but truest Hall of Fame feat of the year
We've always thought that nobody was a bigger threat to stretch a home run into a single than that fabled sprint champ, Bengie Molina. But this year, the Giants' always-innovative catcher did something even more impossible:
He hit a home run -- but DIDN'T SCORE A RUN.
So how'd he become the first man in major-league history to pull that off? It took a rare, Molina-esque combination of muscle, lead-foot-itude and modern technology. But it happened, all right. Here's how:
On Sept. 26, Molina lofted a fly ball that looked as if it hit the top of the right-field wall at AT&T Park. So Molina stopped at first. Emmanuel Burriss trotted out to pinch-run for him. And nothing seemed amiss -- until Omar Vizquel told Giants manager Bruce Bochy he thought he'd heard the ball clank off the metal roof just above the wall.
So Bochy asked the umpires to use replay. And whaddayaknow, the call was reversed and Molina had himself a two-run homer. But the umps WOULDN'T let Molina come back to finish his trot because they ruled Burriss was already in the game and couldn't exit. So Burriss finished circling the bases. And Molina wound up with a box-score line that went 3-0-1-2 -- on a night he hit a home run.
Want to know how impossible that is? Our buddy, Andy Baggarly, of the San Jose Mercury News, checked in to tell us that when official scorer Michael Duca tried to enter this sequence into his computer, the computer program wouldn't let him do it -- because even computers know a guy can't hit a home run without scoring a run. Right?
So check the box score over at baseball-reference.com. It still doesn't believe this happened. But it did. In actual life. And all us Strange But True Feats of the Year fans will be eternally grateful that it did.
Five all-time strange but true-isms of 2008
• BEWARE OF MAD DOG DEPT.: The only Padre to steal a base in the entire month of July was that world-famous base bandit, Greg Maddux.
• EQUAL TIME DEPT.: CC Sabathia tied for the lead in shutouts in BOTH leagues in the same season.
• CRIME DOESN'T PAY DEPT.: Willy Taveras stole five bases in one game on June 14 -- but still didn't score a run.
• SIX OF ONE, HALF-DOZEN OF THE OTHER DEPT.: Matt Holliday reached base six times in one game April 17 -- but didn't score OR drive in a run.
• DÉJÀ VU DEPT.: And the Padres somehow won four games in a row in June by exactly the same score -- namely, 2-1. So how insane was that? (A) They had only one other stretch all year in which they won four games in a row by ANY score. And (B) they were the first team in history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, to win four straight games with exactly the same score of any size, shape or numerical denomination.
Today I am 40-years-old...I was trying to decide what to do for my blog on this landmark birthday when The Zone Blitz ran a blog entry of CNBC's new commercial in which their anchors describe who they are...I liked it...so, at 40-years-old, here is who I am:
I am a passionate person...
I bleed Maize and Blue...and despise scarlet and gray...
I love dogs...
I battled depression and won...
I completed 2 marathons...
I am 40-years-old and still feel young...
Give me a gloomy fall day anytime...
I hate bullshitters...
When I go to work, I feel I can make a difference in people's lives...
It is our duty to help the less fortunate...
I have a caring heart that often gets me hurt...
I enjoy writing...
My dad is my hero...
I love sports...and I love watching sports on my HD television...
Ice cream is the best comfort food...
I took 60 stitches in my forehead when I was 6-years-old after being in a car accident...
I fear flying...
Humiliation is wetting your pants in kindergarten...
I like to make people laugh...life should not be taken too seriously, we are only here for a short time...
I'm warning you now, don't ever cross me...
My mother died when I was 23, but her values still live with me...
Here are various reports from the recent firings on Monday of three NFL coaches...
New York Jets - Eric Mangini
My thoughts - it seemed like yesterday that Mangenius was having dinner with Tony Soprano...now he is out of work...that is the way it is in the big city...take a hike Mangenius...
Rich Cimini of The Daily News writes how Mangini's downfall began when Brett Favre joined the club... "On the surface, Eric Mangini's downfall began five weeks ago, when the Jets started a late-season meltdown with an ugly loss to the Broncos. In reality, it started much earlier, with the blockbuster trade for Brett Favre in August." ... Frank LuksaSteve Serby of The New York Post writes how Jets management is still in love with Brett Favre... "If Johnson and GM Mike Tannenbaum are really serious about staying with Favre and a right arm that needed an MRI yesterday, a scattershot right arm that will be 40 years old in October, then they aren't moving forward." ... Steve SerbyCleveland Browns - Romeo Crennel
My thoughts - RAC, as he was known to his players, had to go...personally, Crennel seems like a nice guy who knows his football, but he lacks that certain something to be a successful head coach in the NFL...this was a good move...
Tony Grossi of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer breaks downs the firing of Romeo Crennel... "With Cowher no longer a viable candidate for head coach, Lerner prefers to have the executive position filled first, but will proceed, he said, to line up interviews with prospective head coach candidates." ... Tony GrossiDetroit Lions - Rod Marinelli
My thoughts - just like RAC, Marinelli seems like a good guy who was caught in a bad situation...the Lions had no choice but to fire him after going 0-16...
Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press writes that Lions ownership should have fired more than just Rod Marinelli... "This team, the Detroit Lions, needs a total overhaul, and that means everyone, everywhere, most especially the front office. Instead, on Monday, William Clay Ford Sr., the most inept owner in the NFL, did the easiest thing. He fired the coach. Wow. How tough is that? Your team went 0-16. What else were you going to do, give him a raise?" ... Rod MarinelliThe Detroit Free Press breaksdown the six possible candidates to fill the vacancy in Detroit...
Detroit Free Press
I saw this article on Yahoo...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Those eager to put 2008 behind them will have to hold their good-byes for just a moment this New Year's Eve.
The world's official timekeepers have added a "leap second" to the last day of the year on Wednesday, to help match clocks to the Earth's slowing spin on its axis, which takes place at ever-changing rates affected by tides and other factors.
The U.S. Naval Observatory, keeper of the Pentagon's master clock, said it would add the extra second on Wednesday in coordination with the world's atomic clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC.
That corresponds to 6:59:59 p.m. EST (23:59:59 GMT), when an extra second will tick by -- the 24th to be added to UTC since 1972, when the practice began.
UTC is the time scale kept by highly precise atomic clocks around the world, accurate to about a billionth of a second per day, the Naval Observatory says. For those with a need for precision timing, it has replaced Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT.
The decision to add or remove a second is the responsibility of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, based on its monitoring of the Earth's rotation.
The goal is to make sure clocks vary from the Earth's rotational time by no more than 0.9 seconds before an adjustment. That keeps UTC in sync with the position of the sun above the Earth.
Mechanisms such as the Internet-based Network Time Protocol and the satellite-based Global Positioning System depend on precision timing.
The first leap second was introduced into UTC on June 30, 1972. The last was added on December 31, 2005.
They have been added at intervals ranging from six months to seven years, Daniel Gambis, head of the IERS Earth Orientation Center at the Observatoire de Paris, wrote in an explanatory piece this month (http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/).
Among the reasons for Earth's slowing whirl on its axis are the braking action of tides, snow or the lack of it at the polar ice caps, solar wind, space dust and magnetic storms, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology, another timekeeper.
By contrast, a leap day, February 29, occurs once every four years because a complete turn around the sun -- our year with all its seasons -- takes about 365 days and six hours.
In 1970, an international agreement established two time scales: one based on the Earth's rotation and another on highly accurate atomic clocks.
The U.S. Naval Observatory's master clock is based on a system that now includes 50 atomic clocks, 36 based on the element cesium and 14 known as hydrogen masers.
With the Earth's rotation gradually slowing, the periodic insertion of a leap second into the atomic time scale is needed to keep the two systems within a second of each other.
This article was taken from The New York Times - Monday, December 29, 2008...
The coaches and players with this season’s 0-16 Detroit Lions will always be associated with the worst season in N.F.L. history, but at least they can share in the blame. Terry Felton, a pitcher with the Minnesota Twins from 1979 to 1982, holds a dubious record all by himself.
Felton was 0-16 in his career. That is the most losses by a pitcher without a victory since 1900. In 1982, at age 24, he broke a record that had stood since 1914 when he lost his 14th straight decision, the most from the start of a career. Guy Morton was the previous record-holder with the Cleveland Indians.
Felton did retire all six batters he faced in his major league debut in 1979, and he saved three games in his career, but he finished with an earned run average of 5.53 in 55 games and was plagued by control issues.
In an interview with The New York Times after a loss in 1982 in which he made a throwing error, Felton said: “I messed up again. It’s not funny anymore. When I first heard about the record, it was funny and I didn’t really think I’d ever do it.
“I thought I’d get a win before now. It doesn’t happen to everybody. It only happened to two people.”
