#103---All-Star Game, 7/13/1999

This was certainly the most memorable All-Star Game of my lifetime, with the famous Ted Williams first pitch meet & greet, then Pedro going all Carl Hubbell in front of the fans. You can see that Martinez fanned Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Jeff Bagwell. Hubbell’s famous strikeout skein was against Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin--a more illustrious group, no doubt, but one can still make the case that Pedro’s should have also been five Hall of Famers.

I had no recollection that Tony Fernandez had bounced back to be an All-Star; in my mind his career ended with his tumultuous 1997 postseason with Cleveland, but Fernandez was worth over 6 combined bWAR in 1998-1999 back with Toronto. Other surprising all-star names that pop up include Ron Coomer, Jose Offerman, and Kent Bottenfield. And I still couldn’t spell “Guerrero”.

#102---NYA @ CLE, 6/19/1998

 
This is at least the second time I’ve posted a scoresheet of the greatest team of my lifetime, the 1998 Yankees, losing. At the time I was a typical Yankee-hater, especially since they would ultimately beat my beloved Indians in the ALCS.

I distinctly remember this game; I was in Florida but was able to listen to this game on the Yankee’s Tampa affiliate (yes, they had such a thing, even in the Devil Rays’ inaugural season). I kept it on a form that was designed for tracking statistics for APBA games; on our vacation I had bought a APBP starter kit with the 1995 playoff teams for about $5 at a Big Lots. Why that compelled me to keep score of a major league game on the accompanying sheet is a mystery, though.

Jim Thome was the star of the game, hitting two homers and drawing two walks.

#101---CLE @ KC, 3/16/1997

For this spring training game, I was once again using a pre-printed form with the multiple choice quiz, but at least I was tracing the diamond and not being ridiculously excessive in my notation.

This is the second straight game I’ve posted in which Albie Lopez started for Cleveland; apparently I had the misfortune of choosing to disproportionately score his games. It’s a spring training game so there isn’t that much of note here, but I enjoy seeing Mike Sweeney batting eighth and catching for Kansas City, as well as the appearance of Trenidad Hubbard, who at least in my memory was scorching at the plate during spring training 1997. I believe I took to calling him the “Immortal Trenidad Hubbard” during this time in homage to the Immortal Joe Azcue. I should go to the storage locker and dig out old Baseball Weekly copies to verify. Hubbard would get into seven regular season games for the Indians. He had a weird career, making his major league debut at age 30 in 1994, then appearing in every major league season through 2003. His career OPS+ was 86 in 864 PA, but he was a  legitimately good bench piece for the Dodgers at age 34 in 1998, with a 116 OPS+ in 235 PA.

#100---CLE @ TOR, 4/28/1996

My earliest scoresheets are horrible to try to read; not only was I using a terrible “circle how the batter reached” pre-printed sheet, but I insisted on using drawn out notations like “FLY 7” when a simple 7 would have sufficed. If you can soldier through that, this was a fun game for the Indians as they absolutely destroyed Frank Viola, lighting him up for ten runs in four innings. The biggest single blow was Sandy Alomar’s 3-run homer in the first, and Albert Belle hit a solo shot in the fourth. The onslaught didn’t stop when Viola got the hook, as the Indians scored six in two innings off Giovannie Carrara, including a two-run homer by Alvaro Espinoza, one of a career-high 8 he would hit in 1996 (8 of his career 22, it really was the silly ball era).


Toronto’s scoring came on three solo homers: Sandy Martinez, Carlos Delgado, and Ed Sprague. One thing I can’t figure out is how one was supposed to be able to tell if substitutions occurred in the top or bottom of an inning; the substitutes are all just listed with an inning number (e.g. Kirby 6). Maybe it was assumed to be top or offense or some other default unless otherwise noted?

#99---South Africa v. Australia, 2/13/2016 (World Baseball Classic Qualifier)

Happy Baseball!

This was the first game I scored in 2016, the final of the WBC qualifier played in Sydney that featured the host Aussies, South Africa, New Zealand, and the Philippines. Australia had competed in the first three editions of the Classic, while South Africa had played in the first two as something of a token representative of Africa before qualifying was put in place. Obviously Australia was the favorites, with starter Travis Blackley, reliever Peter Moylan, and right fielder Trent Oeltjen among their players with MLB experience.

Despite the talent imbalance and lopsided final score, it was a very fun game to watch. Gift Ngope led off with a homer for South Africa, and Oeltjen doubled in a run to tie it in the bottom of the frame. The game stayed tied until Australia led off the fifth with back to back homers, but South Africa came right back to lead 4-3 on a three-run homer. Once again the lead was short-lived as the Aussies tied it in the sixth, then took the lead with two in the seventh.

South Africa wasn’t done yet, scoring a run to pull within 6-5 and stranding the tying runner at third. But in the bottom of the eighth, their thin bullpen finally cracked, with Australia sending eleven to the plate and scoring four times off a parade of South African relievers. Still, it was a good way to start another year of watching baseball and keeping score.