Biggio: 3000th Hit...Thomas...500th HR
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Great Day for Baseball
June 28, 2007 is a day that will be remembered for many years especially for Craig Biggio who registered his 3000th hit and Frank Thomas who slugged his 500th home run of his career. Both players had press conferences that showed the good side of baseball. Thomas said he got to where he was yesterday by hard work ever since leaving college and Biggio thanked the fans for their appreciation for what he has done for the Astros in the 19 years with the team. John Smoltz playing for the Braves for 18 years is the closest to Biggio in consecutive years with one club.
It was a very emotional celebration for Biggio when his wife and kids came on the field then he coaxed his longtime teammate Jeff Bagwell onto to the field as they raised their arms in celebration. If there was one player in baseball that deserves what has happened to him in his major league career it would be Biggio. He plays the game the way it was meant to be played and leaves nothing on the field after a game. Then to top it off he started off the 11th inning with his 3001st hit passing up the great Roberto Clemente who hit his 3000th shortly before dying in a plane crash enroute to Nicaragua where he was going to help earthquake victims in a relief mission.
The game was further enhanced by a pitching duel between Roy Oswalt and Aaron Cook who both pitched seven innings allowing only one run each. Rockies went ahead 4-1 in the top of the eighth behind a home run by Ryan Spilborghs and then the Astros tied it 4-4 in the bottom of the eighth on home runs by Lance Berkman and Mike Lamb. Then rookie Troy Tulowitzki hit a monster blast to left center field to give the Rockies a 5-4 lead in the top of the eleventh inning but in the bottom of the inning Biggio picked up his fifth hit of the night to start a rally that would eventually end with a bases loaded walkoff home run by Carlos Lee as the Astros won the game 8-5.
Brian Fuentes 0-3 took the loss for the Rockies which was his third straight in as many appearances while also blowing three consecutive saves. In those three appearances Fuentes has given up 9 runs...6 of them earned and 10 hits in 1 2/3 innings. This game was baseball at its best. The Astros may be 13 1/2 games behind the first place Brewers but for one night that was forgotten as the fans celebrated Biggio reaching 3000 hits and seeing Lee hit a walkoff homer to win the game. Fans at the game got more than their money's worth last night seeing a 1-1 game after 7 innings and saw six home runs leave the park and saw eleven runs cross the plate in the last four innings of the game.
Around the Bases
A's pounded out 13 hits but it wasn't enough to defeat Paul Byrd 7-3 another LSU alumni as the Indians won 4-3....Kenny Rogers 2-0 pitched 6 innings of one run baseball and Gary Sheffield hit his 18th homer in the 5-2 Tigers win over the Rangers....White Sox swept the Rays as Paul Konerko hit his 13th and 14th home runs of the season but are still only 2 games ahead of the last place Royals who are 13-11 for the month and have won four in a row.
Randy Wolf 9-6 defeated the Diamondbacks and Randy Johnson 4-3 by a 9-5 score as the Dodgers exchanged places with the Diamondbacks with the Dodgers joining the Padres in first place in NL West....Phillies bullpen blew another save but they still defeated the Reds in the tenth inning on a single by Jimmy Rollins giving the Phillies a 8-7 win over the Reds. The win moved the Phillies to within three games of the first place Mets whom they face this weekend in Philadelphia.
Series to watch this weekend:
Phillies play first place Mets in a day/night doubleheader tonight and if they can sweep the series they would be a game ahead of the Mets on Sunday. Cubs have a chance to move closer to the Brewers with a three game series against the Brewers in Wrigley Field this weekend and next week they have four games with Nationals then play the Pirates for three games before going into the All Star break so if they can hold their own with the Brewers they have a real shot at getting closer by the All Star break.
White Sox and Royals battle this weekend with the Royals trying to catch up and pass the White Sox while the White Sox try to distance themselves from the last place Royals....In the best matchup of the weekend the first place Dodgers and Padres of the NL West battle each other to see which team takes possession of first place since with a three game series one team or the other will find itself in first place Sunday.
Glance at the Standings
American League
AL East: Blue Jays fell to 9 1/2 games behind the Red Sox in the AL East with their loss yesterday....Yankees and Rays both have four game losing streaks....Blue Jays are only team in division with a winning record (6-4) in their last ten games.
AL Central: All five AL Central teams won yesterday....White Sox and Royals both have four game winning streaks. No AL Central team has a losing record in their last ten games with the Tigers the best at 8-2.
AL West: Mariners have won five games in a row but still are five games behind the first place Angels despite the Angels losing three in a row. Three AL West teams travel to east coast with the Angels playing the Orioles, the A's playing the Yankees and the Rangers playing the Red Sox.
National League
NL East: Braves have longest winning streak in division with three wins in a row but not too much can be written into that since they were against the Nationals....Mets are only team in division with winning record (6-4) in the last ten games....Phillies who are 5-10 in one run games play the Mets today who are 10-4 in one run games so Phillies need to run up the score early on the Mets.
NL Central: Cubs have longest winning streak in baseball with 6 wins and hope to extend the streak as they play the first place Brewers. With them being 14 games over .500 again the Brewers have come all the way back to where they were before their slump and are 7 1/2 games ahead again. They are 30-13 at home but 16-19 on the road so they hope to start winning on the road so they won't lose ground on road trips like the one to Wrigley Field today. Reds with a 30-49 record and .380 winning percentage are the worst team in majors this year and with two games left in first half of season they could be halfway to a 100 loss season if they lose one of those games.
NL West: Rockies who started the month of a June with a 13-5 spurt have since then have lost seven in a row. If their closer Brian Fuentes who has blown and lost three saves in his last three appearance can't get straightened out soon this team will continue to struggle. If not for is three blown saves the team would be 41-38 instead of 38-41....Giants need to win 11 in a row to play .500 baseball.
American Baseball Players in Japan
Finished reading the book October 1949 by David Halberstam yesterday and at the end of the book it told about what happened to the some of the players mentioned in the book and it told of the recently deceased Clete Boyer making a positive impact on the Japanese fans by working hard to learn the Japanese language while on the other hand his teammate Joe Pepitone had a very bad reputation after saying he was injured and missed a game but was well enough to go to a Japanese disco club. After that any American player that dogged it was called a Pepitone.
At baseballguru.com they have a list rating the best American players that played in Japan. Surprisingly the top vote getter was Bobby Rose who played in only 73 games in four years with the Angels before going to Japan. ...Boomer Wells hit the longest home run in the history of Japanese baseball hitting a 532 foot home run.
Japanese Baseball Players in America
According to Japaneseballplayers.com there are 14 Japanese players playing in America. They have a sidebar at the site that gives the stats of the Japanese players. Tomo Ohko, Tadahito Iguchi and Kei Igawa are the only players not performing that well this season with all the rest having good to excellent seasons with Igawa and Ohko both having been sent to the minor leagues but are both back at the major league level at this time.
