Futility Infielder Blog » futility infielders

Rocky Bridges (1927-2015)

Jay Jaffe — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 21:56:06 +0000

“Rocky Bridges looked like a ballplayer. In fact, he may have looked more like a ballplayer than any other ballplayer who ever lived. His head looked like a sack full of rusty nails, he kept about six inches of chewing tobacco lodged permanently in the upper recesses of his left cheek, and his uniform always ...

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The New Nick Green

Jay Jaffe — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:05:00 +0000

The Baseball Prospectus/ESPN Insider soup du jour is a roundtable devoted to dissecting the performances of a few unlikely first-half heroes. ESPN editor Matt Meyers, columnist Buster Olney, BP colleagues Kevin Goldstein and John Perrotto and I discussed whether the work of Red Sox shotstop Nick Green, Mets pitcher Fernando Nieve, and Rays utilityman Ben ...

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Sucking in the Seventies

Jay Jaffe — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:51:00 +0000

There are futility infielders, and there are Futility Infielders. Today’s New York Times features a Tyler Kepner article on Yankee first base and infield coach Mick Kelleher, an exemplar of the good-field/no-hit players whose baseball cards clogged my collection in the late ’70s. Joe Posnanski has his Duane Kuiper, owner of one major league home ...

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Here’s to You, Mrs. Olbermann

Jay Jaffe — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:24:00 +0000

One more loss to add to the list of those who have passed in the last week: Marie Olbermann, mother of former ESPN anchor and current MSNBC Countdown Keith Olbermann. In an episode whose roots connect directly with the genesis of my web site, Mrs. Olbermann was struck in the face by an errant Chuck ...

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The Stadium Within

Jay Jaffe — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:44:00 +0000

With Yankee Stadium II in its final year, the nostalgia is already getting a bit thick, as everybody and their grandmother pens their ode not only to the House that Ruth Built, but to its shabby cousin in Queens, also in its final season. Luckily, some of the stuff is pretty good. The New York ...

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Vuk (1947-2007) [BP Unfiltered]

Jay Jaffe — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 21:14:00 +0000

The world of futility infielders has lost one of its legendary practitioners in John Vukovich, who passed away this week at age 59. Vukovich, a .161 career hitter, holds a rather dubious distinction, as I wrote at BP Unfiltered, but the 40 years he gave to the game as a player, coach, interim manager and ...

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