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Thursday, January 25, 2018

Chipper Jones: Hall of Famer

Chipper Jones was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday with over 97% of the vote - a deserving choice. I watched some MLB Network last night, but will have to watch videos of Chipper’s reaction. Poor Billy Wagner seems to be in the same boat as Andruw (see below).

This afternoon a coworker hollered that the promotional schedule was out. I got a new phone this morning and hadn’t downloaded any apps. My old phone isn’t working any more so I had to track down the schedule on my laptop. Not too bad. Guess they were waiting to make sure Chipper officially made the hall to reveal the promotions. Will Folty still be on the team in mid-September?

This week closer Trevor Hoffman was elected the baseball’s hall of fame with 77% of the vote. Billy Wagner only received 10% of the HOF vote, mostly because voters only use total saves as the sole criteria for induction for a relief pitcher.

YR…GP…...IP..……H…..R….ER...HR..BB.…SO….W..L..SV.WHIP.ERA
16 0853 0903.0 601 262 232 082 300 1196 47 40 422 1.00 2.31 BW
18 1035 1089.1 846 378 347 100 307 1133 61 75 601 1.06 2.87 TH

Goose Gossage, Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, and Bruce Sutter ae the only other relievers in the HOF. They played in the era before closers were 9th inning shutdown specialists, so its difficult to compare them to Hoffman and Wagner. Of all HOF pitchers, Fingers and Sutter together compiled fewer WAR than 56 other HOF pitchers.

saves WAR WPA WPA/LI
.6TH   6TH   6TH   4TH BW
.2TH   5TH   2ND   3RD TH

Dennis Eckersley is also in the hall as both a starter and reliever. For five years Eck ranked second in AL pitching WAR, before he became an excellent closer.  His career is similar to that of John Smoltz, though Smoltzie spent more time as a starter than reliever.


Going to Chop Fest? I haven’t been in years, and remember the cold at Turner Field years ago when I took the kids. But I know a bunch of people who are going, and me and two young guys from work are going early Saturday morning.

CPA: Nice Hall of Fame class.  Next year I think it is going to be Mariano, Edgar Martinez and Mike Mussina.  I think the veterans committee may eventually put McGriff in.  If Andrew had of won the MVP in '05 (as he should have) and spent a few more years in Atlanta, I think he would have made the Hall.

Nice promotion schedule the Braves have released.  On Tuesday, 9/4, I may have to actually get there early with you to get the Babe Ruth bobblehead.

ME: Babe Ruth bobble: I see the Boston connection, but on the Tuesday after Labor Day even with school in session the game should be a sellout without a bobblehead giveaway. Plus there will be lots of Red Sox fans at the game, so they won’t even be rewarding Braves fans. That will be the first ticket I’ll buy.

The Chipper bobble plays Jones' walk-up song: Crazy Train. The Babe Ruth bobble must play the theme song to "No No Nanette." 

JFBC is similar to SPdL in that there are lots of hallways and staircases. There are multiples routes you can take places but not every route will take you where you want to go. A couple of times I’ve had to turn around and retrace my steps. Plus they have offices across the street (where we met last night). Same thing in the parking lot. Last night I followed a guy who drove on the southern end of the church, clockwise. I turned right to go counterclockwise, then realized there were more obstacles I’d have to drive around. Sunday morning its quicker to park across the street. There are at least four cops directing traffic.

Wednesday: left work at 5:30 and battled traffic the whole way, arriving 5 minutes late but before our little men’s meeting began. Me and seven other guys: Bryan, Jim, Buddy, Matt, another David, and two Dans. M had dropped C off for her meeting, so afterwards I drove across Johnson Ferry and picked her up. She got a free drink and Starbucks and I got a free Chickfila sandwich. No time to watch Gilmore Girls but I turned on the telly while I played on my laptop. Stayed up too late reading reviews about the Honda CR-Z.

I’ve told you that after Bob Marsh preached a sermon using the various dogs in his neighborhood as an illustration (one was named Buckhead) I got the idea to name our golden retriever Speedle. Not the best idea – we always had a lot of explaining to do.

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