The Weakest Link

Left work at five on Tuesday. Drove past the house and on to Rudy Tuesday on Delk, to get their Tuesday cheeseburger deal. Had called in the order and it was ready when I got there. Ate it on the way home. Takeout is never as good as eating in the restaurant. Tonight will be either Wendy’s or Taco Bell, before Hot Stove. Tonight is cap swap night.

Got home around 6:30. Crashed on the couch. Watched Seinfeld and The Weakest Link. Supposedly the worst question answer-ers get voted off, but this one guy went 5 out of 6 rounds without answering a question correctly. He was terrible. I knew the smartest girl voted to keep him for the final round, so it would be easier for her to win. Usually in the final round the two contestants might miss only one or two questions out of five, but this time both contestants got the first four questions wrong. Unbelievable. Then the smart girl missed her last question, and the dumb guy knew which state 4 of the first 5 presidents were from – and the dumb guy was the winner. Hard to believe.

Notre Dame BB – so often these days you see bonehead plays like this. Seems like back in the old days such boneheaded plays were so much more rare. If something dumb happened, it went down in history. Abner Hayes. Leon Lett. Chris Webber. Now the ND guard will probably leave college early and declare for the NBA draft.  That’s another pet peeve, so many foregoing 4 years of college to go pro early, then so many not getting drafted or making it as a free agent.  Some basketballers go overseas but few play more than a year or two. I realize the family financial situation is often poor, but so few cash in.

No new Christmas cards yesterday.

Making a little progress on car shopping. Saturday afternoon I took Ceil to test drive a car. We talked about it for a couple of days to further zero in to what we want. I’m having the best available car shipped to Roswell, but that’ll take another week or two. We’ll see. 

Former Braves shortstop Denis Menke passed away. So did Dick Allen. In 1974 the Braves traded for Allen, but the slugger refused to report. Months later the Braves traded him to the Phillies.     

DICK ALLEN  [SABR Bio] [Obit] appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated during 1972 with a mustache & mutton chop sideburns, juggling three baseballs - SI cover 12-Jun-1972 He was the first player to win the Baseball Digest Player of the Year Award the same year he won the American League MVP award - 1972 POY & MVP He was the first post-expansion player to hit two inside-the-park home runs in one game - 2 ITP HR = 31-Jul-1972, both off future HOF Bert Blyleven He was the most successful of three brothers who played in the majors. Dick’s brothers Hank and Ron combined for almost 400 G in the majors

Allen was involved in the 7-player trade that led Curt Flood to challenge the reserve clause. Allen and Flood were the headliners of the 7-Oct-1969 swap, but Flood refused to report to PHI, setting in motion a series of events that would have enormous impact on baseball. 

He was once traded for the same journeyman catcher twice in a six month span. On 03-Dec-1974 he was traded by the CHW to the ATL for a player to be named later and cash.  ATL sent Jim Essian to the CHW to complete the trade. Then on 7-May-1975, the Braves sent Allen and Johnny Oates to the Philadelphia Phillies for Barry Bonnell, $150,000 and Jim Essian. Also involved in that trade was the player that Dale Murphy credits with his conversion to Mormonism. The Braves’ Barry Bonnell was the devout LDS player.

In Spring Training Allen would purposely not swing at pitches until there were two strikes, so he could prepare himself when it really mattered.  He would also take batting practice at 6:00 AM every day through Spring Training, so nobody was around to distract him. Regarding those unorthodox habits he said, "You can keep your mind in that little box without all the camaraderie and laughing." His manager resigned, mid-season, citing this player’s lack of discipline. Manager Bob Skinner left PHI on 07-Aug-1969 just before a team road trip. Skinner’s future managerial prospects did not benefit as after this his managing of a MLB team was limited to one game with the SDP, a Sunday afternoon win over HOU on 28-May-1977. He did coach for another eleven years in the majors. 

His career OPS+ exceeded those of Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio and Frank Robinson. - Career OPS+ (This improved stat takes a player's on-base plus slugging percentage and normalizes the number across the entire league. It accounts for external factors like ballparks. It then adjusts so a score of 100 is league average, and 150 is 50 percent better than the league average.) Check the list here.