Dan Schlossberg

Somewhere along the way I friended Dan Schlossberg, who is some sort of old-school Jewish baseball writer/radio host. Lives in the northeast, but has been a longtime Braves fan. His Facebook posts are like little recaps of what happened, or what he hopes will happen. Every now and then I chime in on one of his posts as a sign of support. But I’m feeling a little guilty about taking an opposite stance on a few of his posts lately.

After Saturday’s loss Dan was critical of Fredi “benching two sluggers” before the division had been clinched and the home field up for grabs. I objected, since Heyward was returning from injury and a slumping McCann not needing to catch the day game after the night game. Now he’s worried about the home field, but I reminded him that banged up players and tired arms need a little rest so the team isn’t spent come playoff time.   

I had no problem with Fredi resting Freeman Monday night. In general the lineup seemed normal Tuesday night. Interesting that Garcia is coming on like he is. I suppose the ejection helped doom Wood to bullpen duty. I was thinking CJohnson needed a night off. When a player is battling for a batting title, it’s nice that the manager plays him as much as possible, but a day off can be just as helpful.

Wednesday afternoon it must have been a madhouse at Yankee Stadium. I am always slow to follow more people on Twitter because I feel like I need to read every tweet…otherwise I would follow Hample.

Great SI article about Mariano. I always knew he was a great closer, but I never knew that much about him, so I was never a big fan.

I think I told you the story about when I was sitting in the left field bleachers at Atlanta Stadium as a kid. Hank was playing left field, but late in the game Sonny Jackson replaced him. A fan startled harassing Sonny. Later a batter singled to left with a runner on second. Sonny charged the ball and fired home, but his throw to the plate sailed over the catcher’s head and hit the backstop in the air. The irate fan was standing but hadn’t yelled anything. Walking back to his position with his head down, Jackson took off his cap and tipped it to the fan.  

Back in the 70’s, long before the days of statistical analysis, how do you think personnel decisions were made? Surely the statistics available at the time were looked at. Free agency was just getting cranked up. Before that did teams just keep players just because they always had them? Bad teams, perhaps. I always wondered why Sonny Jackson had such a long career in Atlanta. Makes me remember the scene in Moneyball where Brad Pitt can’t believe what he’s hearing from all the old scouts sitting around the table.