Bunting With the Bases Loaded?

Braves came back to win last night, despite Michael Harris (the hottest hitter in baseball) inexplicably bunting with no out and the bases loaded. Snitker was aghast.

For the first half of the season, Braves CF Michael Harris was statistically the worst offensive player in baseball. For a while he was hitting like 0.070. Swinging at every first pitch. Just read that the Braves coaches had been trying to get him to pull his hands back and use the stance and approach he’d used in previous years with much greater success. They had tried to get him to do this ever since spring training. But Harris refused the help – and he continued to be unsuccessful. With Profar suspended and Acuna injured the Braves couldn’t send Harris to the minors. At the all star break Harris finally changed his stance back – and has become the hottest hitter in baseball. Fans blame the coaches, but if a player isn’t coachable, it is the player who is really to blame.

Anna and Caleb went to the game and stayed for the postgame concert – the Braves had given away a record of one of Anna’s coworker’s songs.

Bunting – didn’t teams use to bunt a lot more back in the 1950’s? Seems like they did back in the 1920’s. Players from that era had tons more sacrifices than any player today. But since your friend Bobby Cox liked his pitchers to sacrifice bunt so much, Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz, and Niekro are at or near the top of the list for pitchers with the most sacrifice bunts in history.

Up early to golf this morning. Played like I had taken off 4 months. Kept hitting bad shot after bad shot. One of those days.At least my putting was good.

1. Mulligan was better than tee shot. Same with my fairway shot and chip.

2. Mulligan better than tee shot. Chip better than mulligan.

3. Mulligan better than tee shot.

4. Tee shot better than mulligan. One good chip out of three.

5. Didn’t hit a good shot the entire hole, out of like 9 shots on the hole.

6. Three bad tee shots. As I looked for my ball I realized that I was tired, and decided to relax and take it easy the rest of the round. It only helped a little. Hit a great 5 iron from the fairway, and a decent 7 iron. One good chip out of three.

7. Popped up my mulligan, but at least it went straight. Hit a good 5 iron, an okay 7 iron, then a good chip onto the green. Sad that it took me 4 shots to get to the green, though it is one of the longer holes. Then a good 2 putt.

8. Mulligan better than my tee shot. Flubbed three approach shots and flubbed about 4 chips. At least a walker on the adjacent bike path had tossed a couple of lost balls back on the green for me.

9. Poor tee shot. Three flubbed approaches. Four poor chips. All that and not one ball made it to the green. I picked up and went to work.

Two other coworkers were also running late, so Angie goaded Eric into letting me pick up Chickfila biscuits for the team. Got me a delicious bacon egg cheese chicken biscuit, that really hit the spot. And my cold Coke Zero was also extra satisfying. At lunch I ran out to run my car through the car wash, and hit up Wendys for a BOGO sandwich.

After work yesterday I picked up $1 nachos from Taco Bell plus ten free boneless wings from Hooters. Came home and watched Mad About You. Supporting character Richard Kind steals the show. He was also courting Meemaw in Young Sheldon, and wore an eyepatch in Only Murders in the Building.

Question of the day: what was the first radio show you listened to? My first in Atlanta was Gary McKee, with Yetta Levitt and Willis the Guard.

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me. - Jeremiah 9:23–24.

JOE JACKSON hit .408, .395, and .373 in successive seasons, but never led the league. Babe Ruth said, “He was the most natural and graceful hitter who ever lived,” and modeled his own swing like Joe’s. Ruth gave praise like this to no other player. Jackson is the only player with 25+ tiples and 225+ hits in the same season. In 1912, Jackson had 26 3B & 226* H. 

1911 Joe hit .408, Ty Cobb hit .419

1912 Joe hit .395, Ty Cobb hit .409

1913 Joe hit .373, Ty Cobb hit .389

Jackson ranked 9th, 2^nd, and 5th in the MVP voting. 

1911 behind Ty Cobb, who won the Triple Crown that year;

1912 behind Tris Speaker & his tremendous output on offense;

1913 behind Walter Johnson who had a career best 15.2 WAR.