News: The Yankees place Jorge Posada back on the disabled list.
Views: Are you starting to get the feeling that this just isn't the Yankees' year? It makes sense to just shut down Posada, have him undergo the surgery he was going to need anyway and look ahead toward 2009 for him.
News: Billy Wagner gets his left shoulder checked out.
Views: The Mets have bad luck regarding their relievers in late July. While this hasn't been Wagner's finest season by any stretch, he would be missed, dearly, if he has to be shelved.
News: Rest in peace, Jerome Holtzman.
Views: I think we can all agree that the save, which Holtzman invented, is an extremely imperfect stat. I'll most remember Jerome for being feisty and afraid of no one. I recall him getting into it with a (then) Jacobs Field security guard prior to a Yankees-Indians playoff game in 1997, because the Indians had some foolish policy about letting in the media later than they should have.
Comments (8)
Ken, but wasn't the save rule Holtzman developed different than the one that is used today? I seem to recall it used to be harder to get one when I was younger. I remember reading him in Sporting News for years. I imagine he was the greatest baseball writer ever in Chicago. r.i.p.
Fair question, Sandy. I'll try to find out the answer to that.
I think the first stat rule was actually easier. I think he did it because he thought Roy Face "vultured" a lot of wins going 18-1 in 1959 (Although Bill James researched that and found only one of Face's wins was because he gave up the lead. The others were in tie games or games he came in when the Pirates were losing when Face came in and rallied to win. Same thing with Phil Regan with the 1966 Dodgers). Holtzman's rule was "preserve the lead, any lead". In the early 1970s you started to get people complaining about Jesse Jefferson getting a save with an 8-0 game and it was decided to tighten the rule . Probably not enough. But any stat has its problems but we keep them so Phil Mushnick has something to whine about three times a week (although he cares about the high prices and bad treatment fans get).
Ken, when the Yanks are only 4 1/2 games back of the Rays and 3 games back of the Red Sox, its only late July. Its one thing if its late August or September. Its late JULY FOR GOD SAKES.
If Wagner has to sit out fro extended period of time, the Mets are in trouble. That will be like the Yanks losing Rivera for a extended period of time. Wagner always spits the bit in big games. But not having Wagner in the pen will hurt the Mets. Who steps in as the Closer, Heliman? Sanchez?
Time to fess up..my post last wrong. Holtzman's initial save rule was tougher. It required a pitcher to face winning or tying run at bat when pitching and for his team to win. By the time it became an official statistic in 1969, it was dumbed down.
People researching Elroy Face say he blew leads 12 times allowing the tying or go ahead run. It was common for him to come in the game the 7th or 8th inning. Face ended up with a 8-1 record and the Pirates went 9-3. As Ann Landers would say, flog me with a wet noodle. Memo to self: research before you post, the memory is fading. Sorry about that, chief.
JC -
Here's an excerpt from the The New York Times' "Bats Blog" from yesterday:
Here’s how Holtzman explained the save rule in an interview with a Website called SportsNutz in 2005:
I think it came about in 1960. Elroy Face was 18-1 with Pittsburgh in 1959. I was traveling with the Cubs. The Cubs had two relief pitchers; right hander Don Elston and left hander Bill Henry. They were constantly protecting leads and no one even knew about it. The year Elroy Face was 18-1 he blew 10 leads. Did you know that? But they had such a good hitting team they came back in the last inning and won the game for him. Elston and Henry were terrific. I thought it was not fair and that there should be some kind of index for the effectiveness of a relief pitcher. You couldn’t judge him by his victories. You couldn’t judge him by his earned run average because it should be lower than everybody else’s. A lot of the runs he gives up are charged to the preceding pitcher. So I came up with the save rule and obviously it’s caught on.
Thanks Jim. Glad to know Holtzman was out there defending the reputation of Cub pitchers Bill Henry and Don Elston. What else did they have iback then besides Ernie Banks?
As baseball historian, did Holtzman change rules to make sure Cap Anson was a member of the 3000 hit club? Various encyclopedia have Anson's hit totals ranging from 2,995 to 3,087. The wikipedia article says Holtzman re established the original practice baseball had in 1887 in counting walks as hits.Many people ignore this decision. It seems now the National Association (1871-1875) is counted as a major league when for years it was considered too disorganized and gambling ridden to be. I've noticed you see Bob Mathews listed with 297 wins when he played roughly half his career in the NA. But when you deal in early statistics there are things very hard to sort out.
JC:
In researching the whole Bowie Kuhn/separate HOF wing issue, I came across lots of info on Cap Anson. He wasn't exactly a poster boy for good race relations. In fact, some people feel he should be removed from the HOF. That's how bad he was.
By the way, on the HOF website is an article about Bowie announcing the induction of Satchel Paige into the separate wing. He actually announced this formally. (This is another reason that I feel Kuhn had his fingerprints on this separate wing outrage.) Then there was the uproar over it in the press and public and then in July it was changed and the Negro League greats were allowed to be honored in the same area as the MLB immortals.