Conference 7.286::sports_90

There were actually four measures.  Three of them had to do with increasing
the utility tax by $1.00 a month per household, and the votes in the county
were 51 to 49 opposed, with Mountain View voting 60 to 40 against.  The 
last measure to set aside land for the stadium passed 50.5 to 49.5 percent,
but if there is no financing, there's no stadium, so who cares?

Interesting that the four measures were named measures G, O, H, and N.
    
According to the paper, "Giants owner Bob Lurie had warned that if the
Santa Clara proposal failed, he might sell the team to an out-of-state
buyer rather than continue to play in cold, windy Candlestick Park.
Giants officials said the team could move as early as next year."

AAA

    
    "The Worcester Giants" has a nice ring to it. 
    
    (Pronounced "Whistah", for the out-of-towners.)  Be nice to see the NL
    in NE.  Good population draw from the Boston, Springfield, CT, Southern
    NH areas, too.
    
    Dickster
    

>    "The Worcester Giants" has a nice ring to it. 
>    
>    (Pronounced "Whistah", for the out-of-towners.)  Be nice to see the NL
>    in NE.  Good population draw from the Boston, Springfield, CT, Southern
>    NH areas, too.
>    
>    Dickster
    
Curiously enough, there was an article in SI a couple of months
ago that told about Worcester (the Counts I think?) being an NL
franchise years and years ago, and actually still having 
a charter....

Someone help me out?

'Saw

    Dunno what the hail you're talking about, 'Saw, but I do know that the
    defunct Worcester Counts were in the World Basketball League....... 
    :-)
    
    Hawk

    	Worcester did have a National League team in the late 1800's.
    The team stunk and nobody went to the games.  Sort of an early version
    of the Patriots.
    
    				/Don

    As .6 said, Worcester did have a team back in the 1800's and they
    moved to Philadelphia in 1883 and became the Phillies. Providence
    also had a team around that time.
    
    John

    � Worcester did have a team back in the 1800's and they moved to
    � Philadelphia in 1883 and became the Phillies. 
    
    Whereupon it then took them 97 long and torturous years before they
    finally won a world championship.
    
    So I guess they really were a lot like the Patriots.	:-)
    
    Bob Hunt

    Martin Stone, who currently owns Phoenix's AAA team, is trying to buy
    the Montreal Expos.  They're supposedly 'for sale'.
    
    If this happens, Phoenix wouldn't have to worry about expansion!
    
    Mike

    I thought Philly used to be the Athletics.  Or were there two teams in
    Philly back then?
    
    	--dan'l

    Two teams in Philly.  The Phillies have been there since before the
    turn of the century.  The Athletics moved to Kansas City in the mid
    fifties and then to Oakland in the late sixties.
    
    John

    Yes, Philadelphia had *two* baseball teams for a very long time.
    
    The Philadelphia Phillies joined the National League in 1883 and have
    been there ever since.   There was a year or two where they tried to
    call themselves the "Blue Jays" but it flopped miserably and they went
    back to using the name "Phillies".
    
    The Philadelphia A's were a charter member of the American League which
    began play in 1900, I believe.  They won 8 or 9 pennants and 5 World
    Series total.  This was Connie Mack's team and they were *MUCH* better
    than the Phillies.  He managed them for *50* years, from 1900 to 1950.  
    Many great players.  Eddie Plank, Chief Bender, Frank "Home Run" Baker,
    Rube Waddell, Nap Lajoie, Joe Jackson, and Eddie Collins were some of
    the stars in the pre-World War I teams.  These teams won 3 World
    Series.   
    
    Then Mack broke them up and sold them off and rebuilt the team.   From
    1929 to 1931, he won three more pennants in a row and two more Series. 
    And this was during the Ruth-Gehrig prime Yankee years so you know the
    A's were a tough team.  Lefty Grove, George Earnshaw, Jimmy Foxx, Jimmy
    Dykes, Mickey Cochrane, ...
    
    Around this time, 1930, I think, Chuck Klein of the Phillies put
    together one of the most remarkable seasons of all time.  He hit like
    about .356, had well over 200 hits, hit over 40 homers, and knocked in
    over 150 RBIs and didn't even lead the league in *any* one of those
    categories.   I believe he won the MVP but he didn't win any of the
    individual stats crowns.  I think this was the year Hack Wilson hit 190
    RBIs, Bill Terry hit over .400, and so on.
    
    Anyway, the A's left Philly in 1954 and became the Kansas City A's.  
    Philly mourned.  They went to a green-and-gold uniform then.  They
    stayed in KC until 1965, I think, when they went to Oakland.  And there
    they are today.  If you look closely at the current A's uniforms,
    you'll see a "white elephant" patch on their sleeves.   This is a
    reference to the old Philadelphia A's who used a "white elephant" as a
    mascot symbol of some sorts. 
    
    My dad was a huge A's fan.  He switched to the Phillies after the A's
    left and I never knew about the A's in Philly until I was old enough to
    read up on baseball history.  Which is one of my favorite subjects.
    
    Bob Hunt

    re: the white elephant
    
    When the original owners of the A's put up the money, the other AL
    owners thought that the team was so bad and that the team would run out
    of money, so they called the A's a white elephant. Mack turned it
    around and took on the elephant as the mascot. It's stuck to this day,
    even through Charlie Finley.
    
    Dennis
    

>    The Philadelphia A's were a charter member of the American League which
>    began play in 1900.
    
    Careful Bob, you're showing your age again ;-)
    
    Mike

    Re a few back. I thought the A's went to a purple and gold uniform
    when they moved to KC  and  then green and gold a few years later.
    Guess I'll have to pull out  some  of  those old baseball cards to
    check it out.
    
    John

    >Around this time, 1930, I think, Chuck Klein of the Phillies put
    >together one of the most remarkable seasons of all time.  He hit like
    >about .356, had well over 200 hits, hit over 40 homers, and knocked in
    >over 150 RBIs and didn't even lead the league in *any* one of those
    >categories.   I believe he won the MVP but he didn't win any of the
    >individual stats crowns.  I think this was the year Hack Wilson hit 190
    >RBIs, Bill Terry hit over .400, and so on.
    
    In 1930, the unnamed year of the hitter, every starting member of that
    Phillie team hit over .300, and the NL as a whole hit over .300. 
    What's more, the Baker Bowl was noted as one of the easiest hitting
    parks in baseball, with at least one ridiculously short dimension.
    
    Not to say that Chuck Klein wasn't a fine hitter, but just to put some
    perspective on an offensive explosion.
    
    There's a recent book out, which I haven't seen, which juxtaposes 1930
    with 1968, the Year of the Pitcher.  It sounds interesting, but I
    wonder if the author had to stretch to put the two together.  Anyone
    read this yet?
    
    Dan

   � In 1930, the unnamed year of the hitter, every starting member of that
   � Phillie team hit over .300, and the NL as a whole hit over .300. 
   � What's more, the Baker Bowl was noted as one of the easiest hitting
   � parks in baseball, with at least one ridiculously short dimension.
    
    Baker Bowl's "park effects" are irrelevant to 1930 all by itself. The
    Phillies played in Baker Bowl for many years and never enjoyed in any
    other year an offensive explosion like 1930.
    
    Re: 1930 as The Year Of The Hitter
    
    We've discussed this before over in the BASEBALL conference.  Eliot
    Asinof, author of "Eight Men Out", theorizes that one reason for the
    incredible offensive numbers of the 1920s and early 1930s is that the
    baseball owners of that day were so stunned by the Black Sox Scandal of
    1919 that they steadfastly refused to alter the rules and regulations
    of the game to keep it at its "natural" balance of around a .260
    overall league batting average.
    
    The owners had been tinkering ever so slightly with the rules over time
    so that .260 averages were the long-term norm.
    
    Examples are the banishment of the spitter, adjusting the distance from
    mound to plate, calling foul balls as strikes, and so on.
    
    After the Black Sox Scandal, they introduced the lively ball, left the
    game alone and the hitters ruled the 1920s.  Babe Ruth was a national
    celebrity of epic proportions.   1930 was the highwater mark.   Chuck
    Klein is the icon.
    
    1968 was The Year Of The Pitcher.  Yaz won the AL title with a paltry
    .301 average.  The next year, the mound was lowered and the strike zone
    tightened.   To get back in balance.
    
    Bob Hunt

    RE: White Elephants a few back
    
    I always thought that came from critics who scoffed at building a HUGE
    ballpark, Shibe Park, around 1906-7-?. It was one of the first all
    concrete and steel parks and had a capacity of soemthing like 45,000,
    when a 10,000 crowd was considered "big"
    
    It is kinda strange how the Athletics were the better and more popular 
    Phila team for a long time, until the '50s, when the Phillies of Robin 
    Robers, Richie Ashburn came along.
    
    I think the Athletics wore blue caps in the old days, and switched to
    green & white in KC. It wasn't until Finley bought the team in the
    mid-60's that they wore those radical looking gold uniforms. they moved
    to Oakland for the '68 season.

Jeez, typical digression in SPORTS....now, where were we???

Oh yeah, front page article in the Chron the other day says that good
old Mayor Art (Art for Art's sake) says that he will do whatever it takes
to keep the Giants in S.F.  Says he's been romancing Bob Lurie more than
his own wife.  Hmmm.

Fat chance, Art.  First of all, you're saddled with tearing down the
Embarcadero freeway from last year's quake, you've got a sagging
tourist economy, a city deficit, and voters said twice they didn't
want a new stadium.  There are no plans and no money.  Give it up.

The only way the Giants will get a new stadium is if Lurie pays for
it himself (like Joe Robbie did) and plunk it down somewhere in
Milpitas.  Lurie's got the cash, he just wants someone else to pay
for it.  (Actually, I thought $1 a month was pretty reasonable to see
Daryll Strawberry of the Dodgers stroke a few out of the new ballpark 
onto some wafer fab).

Lurie says he will not sell, wants to stay in the Bay Area, and will
not play in Candlestick.  Only one thing to do, Bob.   Can you say
"Lurie Stadium"?

    The City of New York should build a new stadium that exactly resembles
    the old Polo Grounds and the Giants should move back.
    
    In addition, uniform #23 should be retired by the Giants ...
    
    -- JB

    Who wore #23 for the Giants?  Monte Irvin? Bobby (or Robby) Thompson? 
    Jose Uribe? 
    I know they've retired several numbers like 3 (Ott), 11 (Hubbell), 24 
    (Mays), 27 (Marichal), 44 (McCovey), andmaybe others.  
    
    A Polo Grounds look-alike park would be almost better suited as a
    football stadium. Maybe the Jets would play there. The PG had about 
    55,000 seats and was long and narrow, with crazy dimensions like 250 
    down the lines and almost 500 to dead center. 
    
    Tom

    Myron Guyton?

    23 = Thomson

    Re .21
    
    	The Jets did play in the Polo Grounds. As the Titans