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Post by noetsi on Jul 4, 2021 8:16:39 GMT -5
My first season on the Prodigy Boards was 1990… So that’s 31 years ago… Sarah and I bought our first computer in 1993, I think. We were hooked up for Internet access not long afterward, so I started in Yankee Forums around that same time. My username has always been some form of Rizzuto, and when I first started posting, I’d write really long, Baseball Almanac researched posts on WordPerfect, then copy and paste them onto whatever platform was there. Of course, I suffered through two hour posts that were lost before I could hit send because of glitches with the computer or the dial-up service. It only took me a few of those (slow learner) to start writing them on a word processor first. Also, after attending a MLB game, I’d write really long narratives and reviews on the game and the ballpark. One of my longest and most time-consuming posts was probably an argument on why Nolan Ryan belonged in the Hall of Fame. Does anyone recall who argued that Ryan didn’t deserve that honor? Was it JWild, maybe? Fanmhome was actually sold to scout I think.
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Post by noetsi on Jul 4, 2021 8:20:08 GMT -5
I did not know Jwild was a proff. I managed to continually annoy him.
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Post by inger on Jul 4, 2021 8:46:54 GMT -5
I did not know Jwild was a proff. I managed to continually annoy him. NOTOTAU… Really? How did you miss that one? You didn’t read every word of any of his 6342 word posts, did you?…
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Post by pippsheadache on Jul 4, 2021 10:59:11 GMT -5
Has to be Jwild.
You have balls for going up against the professor. He'd hit you up with a twelve page essay. They were very large posts. Whomever it was, we went back and forth for awhile. These were all argument and statistics laden posts. I believe his mind was begrudgingly changed after I went through every game Ryan ever pitched to illustrate how many additional victories and occasionally fewer losses he would have had, if his teams had just scored one run, two runs, or three runs. I think it was something like 80 or 100 more wins and maybe 50 or 60 fewer losses. I also did the same for three or four other Hall of Fame pitchers, just to prove how poorly Nolan Ryan’s run support was over his entire career, and that the specific argument could not be dismissed as “Well, that could be said of every pitcher.” I don’t think I ever knew JWild was a professor until much later. He and I almost got together when the Yankees were playing in Oakland, but I had to cancel at the last minute. I thought it might have been banfoulballs who was the anti-Ryan debater. I know he and I used to go back and forth on Carlton versus Blyleven. I thought Carlton was clearly the superior pitcher, and ban thought Blyleven was. But the debate was always civil. I loved the posts of both ban and Jwild and miss them terribly. Their arguments were always well-informed and forced you to think carefully. Jwild didn't have much patience with seat of the pants opinions or manifest ignorance, whereas ban tended to just ignore them. Jwild could definitely get spun up on an issue, but if you brought something to the table, he would hear you out. While he could get heated in an argument, JWild assuredly had his humorous side. During slow periods on the board we often rolled out ridiculous reminiscences of Soupy Sales or Mad Magazine or old Steve Allen or Johnny Carson skits. I dunno, maybe it's an age thing. Ban, Jwild and I were all born within a few months of each other and often had the identical remembrances of things, even really obscure things like a newspaper photograph of White Sox OFer Gene Stephens running up against the 461 foot sign in left center tracking a blast from Mickey Mantle. Jeez, I feel like I'm writing a eulogy for guys who are alive and well. And reaching JWild length in the process!
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Post by pippsheadache on Jul 4, 2021 11:08:39 GMT -5
BTW, on Ryan. I never understood the arguments against him. You could even plausibly argue that Nolan Ryan at his best was better than anybody else's best. Just his low-hit games alone -- most no-hitters (7), most one-hitters (12, tied with Feller), most two-hitters (18) and most three-hitters (31) -- would put him into the HOF.
I'm not saying he was the greatest pitcher ever -- clearly he was not -- but he was something unique in baseball history and definitely among the immortals. It was always a treat to watch him pitch.
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Post by rizzuto on Jul 4, 2021 12:46:50 GMT -5
BTW, on Ryan. I never understood the arguments against him. You could even plausibly argue that Nolan Ryan at his best was better than anybody else's best. Just his low-hit games alone -- most no-hitters (7), most one-hitters (12, tied with Feller), most two-hitters (18) and most three-hitters (31) -- would put him into the HOF. I'm not saying he was the greatest pitcher ever -- clearly he was not -- but he was something unique in baseball history and definitely among the immortals. It was always a treat to watch him pitch. jugssports.com/blog/nolan-ryan-may-not-be-the-greatest-pitcher-ever-but-he-may-be-the-most-amazing-one/In major league history, no pitcher was harder to hit than Nolan Ryan, holding “the all-time record for the lowest number of hits allowed—6.6—per nine innings pitched (1,000 innings minimum).” “Ryan was once clocked by radar gun with a 100.9 mph fastball, which he threw in the 9th inning in a game in September 1974. (He pitched a complete 11-inning game that day, in a 1-0 loss). But, since then, that one pitch has been reexamined and recalculated…and it’s picked up speed. That’s because the 100.9 mph pitch Ryan threw was measured at 10 feet in front of home plate, whereas today’s pitches are clocked at 50 ft. from home plate. When expert radar analysts recalculated the pitch with that information, the speed was estimated to be 108.5 mph.”
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Post by inger on Jul 4, 2021 12:57:59 GMT -5
BTW, on Ryan. I never understood the arguments against him. You could even plausibly argue that Nolan Ryan at his best was better than anybody else's best. Just his low-hit games alone -- most no-hitters (7), most one-hitters (12, tied with Feller), most two-hitters (18) and most three-hitters (31) -- would put him into the HOF. I'm not saying he was the greatest pitcher ever -- clearly he was not -- but he was something unique in baseball history and definitely among the immortals. It was always a treat to watch him pitch. jugssports.com/blog/nolan-ryan-may-not-be-the-greatest-pitcher-ever-but-he-may-be-the-most-amazing-one/In major league history, no pitcher was harder to hit than Nolan Ryan, holding “the all-time record for the lowest number of hits allowed—6.6—per nine innings pitched (1,000 innings minimum).” “Ryan was once clocked by radar gun with a 100.9 mph fastball, which he threw in the 9th inning in a game in September 1974. (He pitched a complete 11-inning game that day, in a 1-0 loss). But, since then, that one pitch has been reexamined and recalculated…and it’s picked up speed. That’s because the 100.9 mph pitch Ryan threw was measured at 10 feet in front of home plate, whereas today’s pitches are clocked at 50 ft. from home plate. When expert radar analysts recalculated the pitch with that information, the speed was estimated to be 108.5 mph.” Makes perfectly good sense to me. It’s science…
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Post by inger on Jul 4, 2021 13:00:39 GMT -5
As play started today there are only 14 qualified .300 hitters in MLB. Here are the Yankees top four hitters and their positions on the leaders list:
27. Judge.284 43. Urshela .272 48. DJLM . 270 50. Stanton .269…
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