We remember a real GOAT; ball/strike challenges are coming

June 21, 2024

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Farewell to the greatest of all time. I am Levi Weberherewith Ken RosenthalWelcome to The Windup!

Willie Mays (1931–2024)

In some ways, it seemed like surreal magic that Willie Mays was still with us, here in this incredibly modern world of real-time exit velocities and revolutions per minute. As progress marched on, we continued to share that world with a man who was judged by a simpler standard: as Vin Scully put it in 2016, “… the best player I have ever seen.”

This opinion has been widespread in the last few days since May’s death. But it was not just the eye test. As many have written, There is a strong statistical argument that Willie Mays was the greatest baseball player of all time. He is the third-leading bWAR player of all time, behind Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. However, Ruth did not play in an integrated league, and the questions surrounding Bonds’ peak are so great that writers rejected his induction into the Hall of Fame.

The astonishing magnitude of May’s 156.2 bWAR requires contextSo here are the bWAR leaders among the current players:

Mike Trout: 86.2
Mookie bets: 68.7
Joey Votto: 64.5
Paul Goldschmidt: 62.0

You could add together Trout’s and Betts’ careers and still have to include Daniel Vogelbach’s career to get May’s total.

But apart from the shocking figures, Mays was also an icon off the field. He was simply larger than life. The 42-year-old Mays ended his farewell speech – visibly in tears – with the following:

“I never felt like I would ever quit baseball. But as you know, there always comes a time for someone to quit. And when I look at the kids here, the way they play and the way they fight for themselves, it just says one thing to me: Willie, say goodbye to America. Thank you very much.”

As in baseball, so in life, he got more time than most, and yet — at both 42 and 93 — the inevitable felt too soon. As Mays’ Giants prepare for tonight’s game at Rickwood Field (where Mays began his professional career), we say goodbye to the Say Hey Kid — the best who ever did it.

Photo of Alan Porter, CB Bucknor and Adrian Johnson (lr): Getty; G Fiume, Brandon Sloter / Icon Sportswire, Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire, Jessica Carroll / MLB Photos

Ken’s Notebook: More History at Rickwood Field

History will be made tonight, and not just because Major League Baseball will be played for the first time in the oldest professional baseball stadium in the United States.

The entire umpiring team at the baseball tribute to the Negro Leagues at the 114-year-old Rickwood Field will be black – a first in the history of the NL/AL.

Only 11 blacks were full-time referees in NL/AL gamesstarting with Emmett Ashford in 1966. All five black referees currently working in the league will be part of the team in Birmingham, Alabama – four on the field, one as a replay referee.

Adrian Johnson, 49, will be the crew chief. Alan Porter, 46, will be behind the plate. CB Bucknor, 61; Jeremie Rehak, 36; and Malachi Moore, 34; will complete the group.

The referees said they appreciated not only the opportunity to officiate at such an important game, but also the chance to work with each other. Each of them will wear a badge in Ashford’s honour.

The decision to use only black referees at Rickwood may seem obvious, but the impetus had to come from somewhere. Rob Field, the league’s senior manager of global events, was the first to broach the idea, according to Matt McKendry, vice president of referee operations.

Commissioner Rob Manfred, senior vice president of baseball operations Michael Hill and the umpires union all supported the idea of using an all-black team, McKendry said. At the annual umpires meeting in January, McKendry and Jones asked every black umpire if they would be interested in working the Rickwood game.

“We all said yes immediately,” Johnson said. “I and the other guys were honored when we were asked to work on this game.”

Ball/hit challenges are coming

It feels backwards that technology allows those of us who have no influence on the outcome of a baseball game to have a better view of the strike zone than the umpires responsible for calling balls and strikes.

Or at least it seems that way. If you talk to referees and other players, they will remind you: the field on the screen is not infallible. First, we see the three-dimensional board in two dimensions.

But do you know who should Have an impact on the outcome of a baseball game? The players. And with Automated Ball/Strike (ABS) technology being tested in the minor leagues, it seems we’re getting closer to a sustainable implementation method.

Jayson Stark has all the details here, but on Tuesday MLB announced that In Triple-A games, the fully automatic strike zone should no longer be used, but only the challenge system.

Players and coaches seem to prefer the hybrid, where a human is able to name balls and shots correctly the most of time, but players have the opportunity to challenge blatant misses.

The good news: These are not lengthy “send it back to New York” checks. The referees are simply informed of what the ABS system has detected.
Further, there will not be an infinite number of challenges. Pacific Coast League games allow three teams per team, while International League games allow two teams per team, with successful tackles counting.

According to Stark, we could see this in the major leagues as early as 2026.

Remembering Tyler Skaggs, 5 years later

Sam Blum should win an award for today’s story about Tyler Skaggs, because it eloquently illustrates the long trail of grief that continues long after a shocking headline has passed its expiration date.

On July 1, 2019, I was in the Rangers clubhouse. From the moment we walked in, it was disturbingly quiet. I saw Nomar Mazara take Joey Gallo aside and whisper something serious to him. Gallo’s horrified reaction suggested something truly terrible had happened.

A few minutes later, the media were led out of the locker room and told that there would be a statement. Shortly after, the terrible news: Skaggs, the Angels’ starting pitcher, had died.

In the days and weeks that followed, the shocking details emerged. Skaggs died of an overdose – oxycodone laced with fentanyl, which had been supplied to him by Eric Kay, the Angels’ communications director, who has now served a year and a half of a 22-year prison sentence.

It is a tragedy of this kind for which there is no silver lining. Blum spoke to Skaggs’ wife and mother, as well as pitcher Andrew Heaney, who was a close friend of Skaggs’s in Anaheim. All said they had no idea about Skaggs’ drug use.

If you or someone you love is battling substance abuse, 988 a nationwide hotline to get help, including support for substance abuse.