Quarter Million Home Runs: Today?

I've been fairly busy the last few days, feverishly preparing for a big presentation on Monday. I just wanted to give an update on The Quest for Quarter-Million. A staggering forty-two home runs were slugged in yesterday's action, which brings the total home runs in major league history to 249,969. With just thirty-one home runs to go, it's possible the mark will fall today, with fifteen games on tap. I'll brush my own shoulders with pride if it does come today, as predicted in my earlier post. I will make periodic updates during the day, and will launch into a live-blog when we get within a handful of home runs. It may even happen on national TV, in tonight's ESPN game, with Cole Hamels' Phillies taking on the Mets and Johan Santana.

So stay tuned to the Immaculate Inning for all your Quarter Million Homer updates.

UPDATE: 2:25 PM. Just one home run so far, by Lastings Milledge off Jo-Jo Reyes. Thirty more to go.

UPDATE: 3:25 PM: One hour later, and bevy of homers: Paul Konerko, Mike Jacobs, Albert Pujols, Dusty Ryan, Chase Headley, Toby Hall, and Greg Dobbs, and Alberto Gonzalez bring the total homers in MLB history to 249,979. Still plenty of baseball left to be played tonight.

UPDATE: 4:15 PM. Miguel Cabrera and Kevin Kouzmanoff hit homers since my last update. I flipped on the Brewers-Padres game just in time to see the 249,981st home run in major league history. Gabe Kapler broke up Chris Young's perfect game in the eighth inning on a hanging slider. Young has been amazing today, just 80 pitches through eight innings, but no perfecto. And as I'm writing this, Derek Jeter makes it 249,982 with his homer in the first inning against Ryan Feierabend.

UPDATE: 4:25 PM. Another pair of homers recently, Magglio Ordonez followed by David Ortiz. That brings today's total to fifteen homers, sixteen shy of the milestone. There were 15 game scheduled, or 135 innings; so far 83 of those innings are complete (although the Nats-Braves game is headed for extra innings). So the hitters will have to pick up the pace a bit to make the milestone tonight. While the Phillies are second in the majors in team home runs, they face stingy Johan Santana tonight. Most of the other teams still to play are in the middle of the pack with regards to homers. It may be that tomorrow's early innings will be a frenzy for the milestone.

As I type, Xavier Nady hits home run number 249,985 in the second inning against the Mariners. With the mediocre pitching of Seattle, the Yankees may close the gap a few more times in this game. I predict there will be four or five home runs to go as we enter the Mets-Phillies game tonight.

UPDATE, 5:25 PM. Jason Bay, Adrian Beltre, Brad Hawpe, Chris Snyder, Adam Dunn, and Jose Lopez add their home runs to the mix. With twenty-two homers hit today, just nine more are needed. The Nats and Braves battle on into the 12th inning, and Red Sox-Rangers (8th inning), Yankees-Mariners (5th inning), Astros-Rockies (7th inning), Pirates-Giants (4th inning), and D-Backs-Dodgers (4th inning) are the current games. There's still a chance that the Quarter Million will come today!

Usain Bolt Fan Club

UPDATE 1: See video of Bolt's semifinals here.

UPDATE 2: Click here to see the official results from the 200 meter final. I won't ruin the result, in case you want to wait twelve hours to see it on NBC.

His 100 meter gold medal, and world record, generated a lot of talk. ESPN's Jim Caple sarcastically (I hope) suggested he should have done even more while showing up the rest of the field. CNBC's Darren Rovell thinks that Bolt wanted to put more money in his bank by saving his sub 9.60 time for the next Olympics, or something. Bolt himself just said he was happy to win the gold medal and dismissed talk about the world record. Tyson Gay, unable to qualify for the final, said "I was in awe," following Bolt's win. It's quickly the talk of the Olympics, preventing a post-Phelps letdown.

Earlier I suggested what would be a shocking development as these Olympics near its final days: can the 200 m record, which has stood solid since 1996, fall on Wednesday? Judging by the first few rounds of qualifying, I think it's a serious possibility. Once again, Michael Johnson's 19.32 broke a 17 year old record in Atlanta, and since then only five runners have eclipsed the earlier world record. Bolt will be competing against two of them: Walter Dix (Personal Best: 19.69 and Wallace Spearmon (PB: 19.65), both from the US. Bolt, meanwhile, is the only one who's gone below 19.70 this year, running a 19.67 on July 13.

The preliminary rounds aren't much of a contest for the top runners, and Bolt cruised into the finish line in second place, at 20.64. He just had to be in the top three to ensure he would move on to the next round, the Quarterfinals. The video of his second round race can be found here, starting at the 6:00 mark. Just like in the 100 meter final, Bolt eases up with about 10% of the race still to go-- with about 20 meters to go the unofficial clock reads 18.6 seconds. Even with the ease-up, he crushes Crawford, the runner up, 20.29 to 20.42. Interestingly, sixth-place finisher Amur Seoud from Egypt set a national record at 20.55, and didn't qualify for the semifinals.

Twenty-four hours later, Bolt, Crawford, and Spearmon all competed in the second semifinal. In the first, American Walter Dix settled for third place, behind a season-best from Zimbabwe's Brian Dzingai, and a 20.11 from Churandy Martina, which was a national record for the Netherlands Antilles and the fastest 200 meter run so far. The time wouldn't last long, when Bolt's heat took the track. Spearmon and Bolt were goofing around before the race (and continued it afterwards, when Spearmon put "bunny ears" behind Bolt's head during an interview). With a much higher level of competition, Bolt didn't look phased at all.

Running out of lane six, Bolt had made up the staggered-start on Spearmon (Lane 7) and Kim Collins (Lane 8) within the first fifty meters, and never looked back. Crawford was leading the pack as they crossed the halfway point, but Bolt's freakishly long strides ended that rather quickly. At the 50 meter mark, they were tied, and the unofficial clock read 16.4 seconds. Both men appear to ease up, and looking at the replay, "ease" is too weak an adjective to explain what Bolt is doing along the last few meters. He's jogging, with no more apparent effort than someone just doing their warmup jog before a baseball game. Still, Crawford slows down a bit more than Bolt, who crosses the line at 20.09. Spearmon overcame his terrible start--his reaction time (elapsed between gun and first movement) was 0.196, worst out of all the semifinaliss-- and crossed the line third, wagging his suspiciously blue-tinted tongue at Bolt.

At this point I think the three Americans, who all would normally have an excellent shot at Gold in the final, will be racing for a silver medal. The real question is whether Bolt can chase down Michael Johnson. Despite Johnson's initial reaction following the 100 meter final, the world record holder expressed doubt, and predicted a 19.5x for Bolt in the final (which would still be the fastest time in twelve years). Donovan Bailey, former 100 m record holder predicts "if he gets someone to push him through the corner, we could see something unbelievable. I'm thinking between 19.22 and 19.26."

There are certainly some strong turn runners in the final- Crawford and Dix are among them. By getting the fastest time, Bolt will have the best lane, #5, right in the middle of the track. In front of him will be Spearmon, Dix, Martina, and Dzingai. If he can make up the stagger on the first three before the home straightaway, that's the first sign it will be a magical event. Similarly, it was not until the final 100 meters that Michael Johnson pulled away and set the extraordinary mark. But if Bolt is well ahead, as all indications suggest, will he strive for that mythical air below 19.40? Following his semifinal, Bolt promised he would go all out in the final.

For a sport that has been devestated by one doping scandal after another, it would be a huge boost to the popularity of track and field if Bolt can break the 200 meter record, and do it "clean." Bolt himself has been tested seven times since he arrived at the games, so there can be no doubt of his dope-free running. To those who consider such training regimens to be cheating, a clean Bolt holding the first 100-200 double since Carl Lewis, and breaking two world records, would return a lot of legitimacy to the sport.

Other T&F News and Notes: The Men's Long Jump was won by Panama's Irving Jahir Aranda Saladino with a jump of 8.34 meters. I mention this because the standard for "omg that was amazing" events in Olympic track history was Bob Beamon's 8.90 meters in 1968. No one had ever cleared 28 feet in the long jump, and Beamon was the first to clear not only 28 feet, but also 29 feet (8.90 m = 29 ft, 2.5 in). Event officials were not even equipped to automatically measure a jump of such distance. Despite controversy that Mexico City's altitude aided the jump, no one equaled Beamon's level for 23 years, and still remains the second longest jump of all time and an Olympic record. Imagine the aura surrounding Michael Johnson's 200m record times 1000. If you haven't seen the jump, here's a youtube video.

Also, congratulations to Rashid Ramzi, who became the first ever gold medal winner from tiny Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf, winning the 1500 in 3:32.94. Even though the NBC retards said he was from Qatar in their graphic, he ran a great race and outpaced two Kenyans who had been leading the first three laps of the race. He may soon be joined by Roqaya Al-Gassra, who won her quarterfinal heat of the 200m earlier today and will compete in the semifinals on Wednesday. You'll recognize her; she's the one in the aerodynamic hijab.

Finally, some video of Bolt with some speedy fingers, racing himself on pumarunning.com, getting the "video game times" that the NBC announcer talked about after the 100 meter final:

chasingBOLT #6: Can YOU Beat Usain Bolt?
Uploaded by chasingBOLT

He got 9.69 on the video game, which was posted a week before the 100 m final. Cue creepy music...

Mariano Rivera: Greatest Pitcher of All Time

In a mop-up role, having not pitched for four days, Mariano Rivera took the mound in the ninth inning, facing the heart of the Baltimore Orioles' lineup. It started poorly, as Aubry Huff knocked Rivera's fourth cutter into the right field seats. But Mo settled down to retire Melvin Mora, Jay Payton, and Kevin Millar in order, vaulting himself into the history books.

That one inning pitched last night in Baltimore gives Mariano Rivera 1000.33 innings pitched for his career. By reaching this plateau, Rivera now qualifies for the all-time ERA and ERA+ leaderboards, according to Baseball-Reference.com. First, the classic statistic-- earned run average. Rivera now ranks 17th all time, tied with Jim Scott. Four of the pitchers ahead of Rivera had their careers end before 1900; the latest anyone ahead of him pitched was 1933 (some guy named Ruth), pitched seriously- 1927 (Walter Johnson).

If there's one thing the statistics revolution has taught me, it's that athletes are best judged relative to their peers. For while raw statistics are impressive, their true meaning only comes from studying how much better a great athlete was, compared to his competition. And so we reveal the new career adjusted ERA+ leader: Mariano Rivera. According to ERA+, Rivera has, since 1995, been 98 percent better than his peers, measured by ability to prevent earned runs. Rivera not only takes the top spot; he dominates it. Which raises the question: is Mariano Rivera the greatest pitcher of all time?

Clearly, mlb.com does not think a reliever should enter the discussion. Officially, to qualify for the career ERA title, one has to pitch 2000 innings, double the amount required by baseball-reference. A starting pitcher probably could eclipse the lower mark (1000 innings) in four or five full seasons; indeed Jake Peavy (7 seasons, 1202 IP) and Brandon Webb (6 seasons- 1235 IP) already grace the Active ERA leaderboard. But none of them have an ERA+ anywhere near the range of Mariano Rivera. Is his elevated ERA+ a factor of being a relief pitcher?

The short answer is: perhaps. Goose Gossage, whose recent election to the Hall of Fame might finally open the door for closers, finished with 1809 IP and an ERA+ of 126. All-Time saves leader Trevor Hoffman, who will soon match the 1000 IP plateau, has a career ERA+ of 144. Rather than try and name everyone; here is a list of all pitchers who relieved at least 80% of their games and threw at least 750 innings. Even with a lowered standard, only one other pitcher eclipses Pedro Martinez's record for career ERA+ by a starter (157)- Billy Wagner at 181. Rivera well out-paces Wagner's 181, although it lends some credence to the theory that relievers have inflated ERA+ that shouldn't be quantitatively compared to that of a lifetime starter.

Still, one has to expand the field to include all pitchers with 200 IP to find a single player who eclipses Rivera's ERA+ mark (and I didn't like who I found there either). Whatever the adjustment made to Rivera's numbers, due to his pitching role, it cannot completely erase how Rivera's peers have failed to come anywhere close to his production. Among pitchers with 1000 IP, Rivera is also in the top 25 in Strikeouts 9/IP, all time. Since 1995, no pitcher has prevented home runs better than Rivera. For fourteen seasons, Rivera has compiled a resume that I believe allows him to be compared with the starting pitchers, and statistically he rises as the best. And of course Rivera is, without a doubt the greatest relief pitcher of all time.

But if we can define "greatness" by performance relative to one's peers, no pitcher is greater than Mariano Rivera.

Who cares to challenge this?

Photo credit

Glavine: Not Shot After All

In the summer of 2003, I had my experience in an Office Space type job, making copies and filing mail 8 hours a day and a 1 hour commute each way. Not knowing anyone else in the company, I usually ate lunch in my car, listening to Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN. In the days before the explosion of blogs and other internet commentary, this was the pinnacle of interactive New York sports. Their call-in show was one of the firsts of its kind, and balanced the calm bass voice of Mike Francessa with the crazy, octave-too-high hot-head of Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. This was not always the case, particularly during the summer when one or the other would go on vacation, leaving his partner with four hours a day to fill.

July 20, 2003 was one of those days. The previous day, Mets' starter Tom Glavine threw a stinker against the division leading Braves- he went just 4.1 innings, giving up 7 earned runs on 9 hits. The loss dropped the Mets to fifth place, 24 games behind the Braves. Russo, on his own with Francessa on vacation, decided to make it the "Bash Tom Glavine Show."

"Glavine is shot! He's 37, he's 6 and 10, he's got a 5.10 ERA-- he's just shot! The Mets are going nowhere until they get rid of him! He's shot!"

It went on and on like that until the end of my lunch break. Three hours later, as I drove home, Russo was still going strong with the Glavine bashing.

Tom, however, was not fazed. He went 3-1 with a 1.95 ERA in August of 2003, and finished the season having dropped his ERA to 4.52. He followed this with the following seasons:

2004: 119 ERA+
2005: 118 ERA+
2006: 113 ERA+

While Glavine has been pretty average (96 ERA+) in 2007, he's now 41 years old and certainly nearing the end of his career. And on Sunday, Glavine joined a pretty exclusive group and won his 300th career game. While we at Immaculate Inning realize the relative unimportance of wins as a measurement of a pitchers' worth, we also realize that this is a milestone to be proud of, especially when blowhards like Russo are proved wrong. So have a cookie, Tom, a Publix cookie.

One final note, about 300 wins- lots of announcers have been pontificating again, much as with the "cheapened" 500 HR plateau. They say that 300 wins will never be touched again, as Randy Johnson (284 wins) is old and Mike Mussina (246 wins) is just too far away. They say that with the rise of relief specialists and the five-man rotation, that no one will make it again. Yet Glavine (and Johnson, and Roger Clemens, and Greg Maddux) pitched their entire careers in an era where the 5-man rotation was dominant. Glavine and Maddux may have been aided by a few years with the braves when they, John Smoltz, and Denny Neagle had a de facto 4-man rotation. However, with the many young pitchers entering the game in their early 20s, is it so hard to imagine that someone could put up 15 wins for 20 seasons? Or even 18 wins for 17 seasons?

So it's interesting to me that, for some reason, the mainstream media sees five 500 HR hitters in four years and calls the plateau "cheapened." But three hurlers passing 300 wins in the same period means that it will never happen again? God forbid we use the passing of milestones to celebrate the careers of those who pass them. No, we should discuss existential properties of the milestones, instead. In other news, I am proud to have not listened to Mike and the Mad Dog since I left the NYC area.

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Waiting to Bash

"They were taking pictures of the wrong guy," said Alex Rodriguez, when asked about all the flashbulbs in Yankee Stadium on July 31, 2007. A-Rod's light sense of humor about the issue suggested he wasn't "pressing," while waiting for his 500th career home run. This even in the light of how seven of his teammates tied a franchise record, hitting 8 homers in one game against the White Sox. So, using the immutable power of the Baseball-reference.com play index, let's find out how long sluggers have "pressed" to get from #499 to #500 (since 1958, anyway). From the top:

Henry Aaron: 4 games, between 7/7 and 7/14/68 (there was an All-Star Break in there)
Barry Bonds: 1 game, between 4/17 and 4/18/01 (on his way to 70)
Babe Ruth: unknown via b-r.com, I'll try to look it up elsewhere. Suffice to say there was no pressure, as no one had even hit 200 before Ruth.
Willie Mays: 1 game, between 9/12 and 9/13/65
Sammy Sosa: 4 games, between 9/29/02 and 4/4/03
Ken Griffey, Jr: 7 games, between 6/13/04 and 6/20/04 (he would get injured two weeks later and not have another homer for almost a year... what might have been...)
Frank Robinson: 0 games, hit two on 9/13/71
Mark McGwire: 1 game, 8/4 to 8/5/99 (but we're not here to talk about the past)
Harmon Killebrew: 26 games between 7/25 and 8/10/71
Rafael Palmeiro: 3 games between 5/8 and 5/11/03 (The only member of the 500 club proven to have used PEDs).
Reggie Jackson: 2 games between 9/15 and 9/17/84 (The first 500th home run of my lifetime. I remember it well.)
Mike Schmidt: 1 game, between 4/17 and 4/18/87 (BOOOOOOOOO!)
Mickey Mantle: 9 games, between 5/3 and 5/14/67
Jimmy Foxx: unknown
Willie McCovey: 3 games between 6/27 and 6/30/78
Ted Williams: 1 game between 6/16 and 6/17/60
Ernie Banks: 3 games between 5/9 and 5/12/70
Eddie Mathews: 3 games between 7/8 and 7/14/67
Mel Ott: unknown, all homers before 1958
Eddie Murray: 6 games between 8/30 and 9/6/96
Frank Thomas: 4 games between 6/24 and 6/28/07

It would be fair to say that Killebrew didn't have to face 24 hour sports coverage and live look-ins, and perhaps the "pressure" of hitting #500 would not be as grand as those that came in the last 15 years or so. That would mean that in the ESPN era, only Junior Griffey has gone more games than A-Rod between #499 and #500. This makes a bit of sense, as A-Rod seems to hit homers best when he's not "trying" to- like #499, which came on an opposite-field shot in a situation when A-Rod was clearly just trying to poke a single for a game-tying hit. Hopefully A-Rod hits the big one soon, because the Yankees will need a comfortable, non-pressing cleanup hitter as they move closer to the post-season.

The other interesting thing I noticed in doing this was the frequency of players joining the 500 Homer Club. Mantle and Matthews hit their 500th in the same season, and Aaron's was a year later. In the next three years, three other players joined- Banks, Robinson, and Killebrew. I find this interesting in light of all the articles calling 500 homers "not all that impressive" anymore. After A-Rod's 500th, the four year period beginning with Sosa in 2003 will include the same number of club inductees as the 1967-71 period.

I wonder if, as Killebrew neared the mark, sportswriters noted the sudden surge in the number of players with 500 hits and thought that it "cheapened" the milestone. Then again, in a world without specially marked baseballs, live look-ins, and announcers completely overdoing their calls of deep fly balls (see: Kay, Michael and Sterling, John), how would fans even know that homer #500 is momentous?

Meanwhile, as I write this, Robinson Cano and Shelley Duncan both homered for the Yankees. Maybe they'll reach #500 first...

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