Reminiscent of a real GOAT; ball/stroke challenges are coming soon

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Farewell to the greatest of all time. I am Levi Weaverhere with Ken Rosenthalwelcome to The Windup!

Willie Mays (1931-2024)

In a way, it seemed like surreal magic that Willie Mays was still walking among us, here in this impossibly modern world of real-time exit velocities and rotations per minute. As progress continued to grow by leaps and bounds, we continued to share that world with a man judged by a simpler standard: as Vin Scully put it in 2016, “… the best player I’ve ever seen.”

That has been a common feeling over the last few days since Mays’ death. But it wasn’t just the eye test. As many have written, there is a strong statistical argument that Willie Mays was the greatest baseball player of all time. He ranks third all-time in bWAR among position players, behind Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. But Ruth didn’t play in an integrated league, and the questions surrounding Bonds’ peak are so prominent that writers declined to elect him to the Hall of Fame.

The astonishing size of Mays’ 156.2 bWAR requires contextso here are the bWAR leaders among current players:

You could add the careers of Trout and Betts together and still have to add Daniel Vogelbach’s career to reach Mays’ total.

But beyond the mind-boggling numbers, Mays was also an icon off the field. He was just bigger than life. In his farewell speech, 42-year-old Mays – through visible tears – ended with this:

“I never felt like I would ever quit baseball. But as you know, there always comes a time when someone leaves. And I look at the children here; the way they play and the way they fight for themselves tells me one thing: Willie, say goodbye to America. Thank you.”

As in baseball, so in life: He was given more time than most, and yet the inevitable – at both 42 and 93 – still felt too soon. As Mays’ Giants prepare to play tonight’s game at Rickwood Field (where Mays started his professional career), we say goodbye to the Say Hey Kid – the best thing we ever did.

Photo by Alan Porter, CB Bucknor and Adrian Johnson (l-r): Getty; G Fiume, Brandon Sloter / Icon Sportswire, Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire, Jessica Carroll / MLB Photos

Ken’s Notebook: More history at Rickwood Field

History will be made tonight, and not just because Major League Baseball will be played for the first time on the nation’s oldest professional baseball field.

The entire umpiring crew for baseball’s tribute to the Negro Leagues at 114-year-old Rickwood Field will be black, a first in NL/AL history.

Only 11 black people have been full-time referees in NL/AL playstarting with Emmett Ashford in 1966. All five Black umpires currently working in the league will be part of the Birmingham, Ala., squad. – four on the field, one as a replay official.

Adrian Johnson, 49, will be crew chief. Alan Porter, 46, stands behind the plate. C. B. Bucknor, 61; Jeremy Rehak, 36; and Malachi Moore, 34; will complete the group.

The referees said they not only appreciated the opportunity to play a match of such significance, but also the chance to work with each other. They will all wear a patch in honor of Ashford.

The choice to only use Black Umps at Rickwood may seem obvious, but the impulse had to come from somewhere. Rob Field, the league’s senior manager of global events, was the first to raise the idea, said Matt McKendry, vice president of umpire operations.

Commissioner Rob Manfred, senior vice president of baseball operations Michael Hill and the umpires union all supported the idea of ​​using an all-black squad, McKendry said. At the referees’ annual meeting in January, McKendry and Jones asked each black referee if he was interested in the Rickwood game.

“We all immediately said yes to one guy,” Johnson said. “Myself and the other guys were honored to be asked to work on this game.”

Ball/strike challenges are coming soon

It feels backwards that technology allows those of us who have no control over the outcome of a baseball game to have a better view of the strike zone than the umpires charged with calling balls and strikes.

Or at least, that’s how it seems. If you talk to referees and others in the game, they will remind you: The box on the screen is not infallible. To begin with, we see the three-dimensional plate in two dimensions.

But you know who should have any influence on the outcome of a baseball game? The players. And now that ABS (automated ball/strike) technology has been tried in the minor leagues, it appears we are circling a sustainable implementation method.

Jayson Stark has all the details here , but MLB announced it on Tuesday Triple-A games would no longer use the fully automated offensive zone, opting to go with the challenge system full-time.

Players and coaches seem to prefer the hybrid, where a human can correctly call balls and shots most of the time, but players have the opportunity to challenge glaring misses.

• The good news: These won’t be long ‘send it back to New York’ reviews. Referees are easily informed about what the ABS system has seen.
• Further, there will be no endless challenges. Pacific Coast League matches allow three per team, while International League matches allow two per team, with successful challenges retained.

According to Stark, we could see this in the major leagues as early as 2026.

Remembering Tyler Skaggs, 5 years later

Sam Blum should win an award for today’s story about Tyler Skaggs, which eloquently illustrates the long tail of grief that lingers long past the expiration date of a shocking news headline.

On July 1, 2019, I was in the Rangers clubhouse. From the moment we walked in it was disturbingly quiet. I saw Nomar Mazara pull Joey Gallo aside and whisper something that felt serious. Gallo’s stunned reaction indicated that something truly terrible had happened.

A few minutes later, the media were led out of the clubhouse and told that an explanation would be forthcoming. Shortly thereafter came the terrible news: Skaggs, a starting pitcher for the Angels, had died.

In the days and weeks that followed, shocking details came to light. Skaggs died of a drug overdose: fentanyl-laced oxycodone, supplied by Angels communications director Eric Kay, who is now serving a year and a half of a 22-year sentence.

It’s the kind of tragedy for which there is no redeeming silver lining. Blum spoke with Skaggs’ wife and mother, as well as pitcher Andrew Heaney, a close friend of Skaggs in Anaheim. They all say they had no idea of ​​Skaggs’ drug use.

If you or someone you love is struggling with substance abuse, 988 has it covered a national reporting point to get help, including substance abuse support.

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(Top photo: Bettman/Getty Images)