Time Hurries On

[1] Don't look now, but Dodgers first baseman Nomar Garciaparra is among the League leaders in batting average. As of Monday night, he's hitting .362, slugging .588, with an on-base percentage of .429 and 88 Total Runs to his credit. ("Total Runs" is my terminology for a statistic that combines Runs scored with Runs Batted In.) In addition, Nomar's fielding percentage is a whopping .998! (He has made one error in 59 games as the Dodgers' first baseman.) By comparison, Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee's average, OBP and slugging percentage are .291, .408 and .519, respectively. In 19 games, he has accounted for 27 Total Runs and made two fielding errors for an average of .990.

[2] This year's All-Star Game is in Pittsburgh. It isn't really Pittsburgh's turn to host the mid-summer exhibition, but they got bumped up in the order because their ballpark is new. New, but built in that style that they like to call "retro," because they think we don't realize that "retro" really means "like Wrigley Field."

[3] Dodgers lead-off hitter Rafael Furcal has an on-base percentage of .331. He has accounted for 82 Total Runs. Cubs lead-off hitter Juan Pierre has an OBP of .313, with 50 Total Runs.

[4] The Pirates' new ballpark is called PNC... because it has no soul.
It was built to replace Three Rivers Stadium. If you never had a chance to see Three Rivers Stadium, don't worry: You didn't miss anything. It was exactly the same as Riverfront Stadium in Cincy or Veterans Stadium in Philly or, for that matter, the Astrodome, if you can imagine the Astrodome without a roof. In the words of Robert Wohl, they sucked. Three Rivers Stadium was originally built to replace Forbes Field, which was named for a British general named John Forbes. In 1758, during the so-called French and Indian War, General Forbes captured the strategic Fort Duquesne, on the site of present-day Pittsburgh. Actually, "captured the fort" is a bit of an overstatement. The French had abandoned Fort Duquesne and burned it to the ground before Forbes ever got there. The Brits built a new fort and named it Fort Pitt. Later settlers called the site Pittsburgh, tacking on a silent "h" because the British like to throw in a silent "h" about 'alf the time, just for the 'ell of it.

[5] Stop and think this one over... The Los Angeles Dodgers have played more games in Dodger Stadium than the Brooklyn Dodgers did at Ebbets Field.

[6] Excerpted from Baseball Weekly, June 25, 1876...
GARRYOWEN, MONTANA-- In what could prove to be a pivotal game in the wild Western League pennant race, the Great Plains Indians defeated the Army Cavalry 35-0 today at Little Bighorn Field. As the score would indicate, the game was a slaughter... Army batters were utterly baffled all afternoon by the Indians' crafty left-hander, Crazy Horse, who completed a one-hit shutout... the Indians ran around the bases seemingly at will... Cavalry manager George Custer was unavailable for post-game comment... In other baseball news, the Cubs beat the Reds 3-2...

[7] Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal's fielding percentage is .952. Cubs shortstop Ronny Cedeno's is .962. Cubs center-fielder Juan Pierre has yet to make an error, but then, he can't throw the ball more than, like, 35 feet.

[8] The first hit in the history of Forbes Field was an RBI single by Cubs player-manager Frank Chance. Johnny Evers scored the run. Evers had reached base on the strength of his personality: He was hit by a pitch.

[9] Okay, Cubs fans. Everybody knows Tinker, Evers and Chance. Who was the fourth member of the infield that lead the Cubs to four pennants in five years and a 104-win, second-place finish in the other? Answer: Third baseman Harry Steinfeldt. Hmm... yeah... "Steinfeldt" doesn't exactly have the same ring to it, does it?

[10] Rafael Furcal is five feet, eight inches tall and weighs 196 pounds. Derrek Lee is six-feet-five, 245. Go figure.

[11] On July 18, 1897, in a game against the Baltimore Orioles, Adrian "Cap" Anson, player-manager of the Chicago National League Baseball Club, hit safely for the 3,000th time in his career. He was the first man in the history of the National League to do so. (The other league hadn't been invented yet.) The very next day, July 19th, the man destined to break Anson's career hit record made his major league debut against the Washington Nationals. Although he is best remembered as a Pittsburgh Pirate, and the shortstop by which all other shortstops are measured, Honus Wagner actually began his National League career as the center-fielder of the Louisville Colonels. Although he batted third in the lineup, this was the dead-ball era: In his first plate appearance, he laid down a sacrifice bunt.

[12] Pittsburgh's Forbes Field hosted some 4700 games in just over six full decades of major league service. In all that time, nobody ever threw a no-hitter there.

[13] Bud "Don't Blame Me-- Brenly Handed Me A Steaming Plate of [Feces]" Selig must go.