I posed an interesting question to Dan the Man to start the Sports Time Radio podcast yesterday and I’d love to know what you think. Feel free to leave your answer in the comment section.
If Hank Aaron didn’t care about strikeouts and batting average was treated like it is in today’s game would he have hit 1000 or more career home runs?
I used Aaron for this example because there are quite a few people who still see him as the true home run king of baseball, but also because his career spanned 23 seasons. Giving him one more year than Barry Bonds.
Aaron’s career started in 1954 with the Milwaukee Braves and it ended in 1976 with the Milwaukee Brewers. Aaron led the league in home runs four times and never hit less than 10 home runs in a season. His two lowest home run season totals came at the end of his career when he hit 12 in 1975 and then 10 in his final season. Over his 23 seasons Aaron struck out 1383 times in his career and he never struck out more than 97 times in a season.
Think about Aaron’s strikeout total in this context. Yoenis Cespedes of the New York Mets has played 19 games this season and has struck out 34 times already this season. Matt Olsen of the Oakland A’s has struck out 33 times in 20 games this season. In 1974 season at age 40 Aaron struck out 29 times in 112 games. Olsen is hitting .286 while Cespedes is struggling out of the gate this season hitting just .208. Aaron’s career batting average was .305.
If Aaron had been a believer in the launch angle theory that’s taught and used in today’s game and he adjusted his swing plane. Where would his home run total have ended up? Sadly there’s no way to actually judge this, but if you where luckily enough to see Aaron play try to think back and just picture where his career numbers would’ve ended up.
While we’re just 20 games or so into the season and the weather has played havoc with quite a few games nothing seems to be able to slow the Boston Red Sox down.
The Red Sox where expected to be one of the better teams in baseball and they haven’t disappointed at the start of the season getting off to a 17-2 with a 7-3 win last night over the Oakland A’s.
As odd as it may seem the Red Sox lost on the opening day of the season 6-4 to the Tampa Bay Rays before stringing together 9 wins in a row. Their second lost of the season was to the New York Yankees 10-7 on April 11th. The Red Sox are now on an 8 games winning streak with last nights win.
The Red Sox have two more games this weekend against the 9-11 A’s. Boston will get a day off before starting a three game series with the surprising Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays are off to a 13- start to the season.
Can the A’s find a way to end the Red Sox winning streak this weekend? Or will Boston take what would be a 10 game winning streak into their division match up with Toronto.
Have the Red Sox established themselves as the best team in Major League Baseball this early in the season? Or is there anther team out there that you think deserves that to be called the best team?
The 1st round of the NBA playoffs are rolling along and as expected LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are drawing a lot of attention in the Eastern Conference.
The Cavaliers ended up finishing 4th in the Eastern Conference and ended up with a match up against the 5th seeded Indiana Pacers in the 1st round.
The Pacers did what ever visiting team wants to do in Game and that is steal a game on the road. Surprisingly Indiana actually won Game 1 relatively easily 98-80. Even with James scoring 46 points, grabbing 12 rebounds and handing out 5 assists in 40 minutes the Cavaliers still had to struggle to win Game 2 100-97.
With the series tied at 1-1 it was Indiana’s turn to be the home team, but going into halftime it didn’t look like the Pacers had any type of home court advantage as they found themselves down 17 points 57-40.
I’m sure most people thought that with a big lead heading into the second half James would close out the Pacers and get the Cavaliers that game back that they lost at home. Well not so fast.
After Victor Oladipo hit two free throws with 6:52 left in the 3rd quarter the Pacers where back to within 10 points at 61-51. After trading a three pointer for a two points the Cavaliers had an 11 point lead, but after that the Pacers double up the Cavaliers offensive output and ended the quarter down just 6 points at 69-63.
Now again I’m sure that most people where thinking that it’s a 6 point lead and Cleveland has the best player in the world on their team, they’ll win this game.
It didn’t go like that though. The Pacers started the 4th quarter doubling up the Cavaliers offensive output again 12 to 6 and the next thing you knew the game was tied at 75 all. A James lay up gave the Cavaliers the lead back, but Oladipo hit a jumper to tie the game back up at 77 all. The Pacers scored 7 points in a row and it looked as though they might pull away, but the Cavaliers fought right back this time with 7 points of their own and the game was again tied at 84 all. Indiana then went on another 7 point run. Cleveland did come right back again, but this time they scored 6 points in a row and found themselves down 91-90 with just 7.7 seconds left. With 5 seconds left Darren Collison was fouled. Collison hit his first free throw giving Indiana a 92-90 lead. Collison missed his second free throw and J.R. Smith ended up with the rebound. Smith did what he could to advance the basketball down the court for a final shot, but he ended up about 40 feet away. Smith’s last second shot fell short and the Pacers had a 92-90 win and a 2 games to 1 lead in the series.
With Game 4 being Sunday night in Indiana, do you think the Cavaliers are in trouble in this series? Could the Pacers actual pull off what would be considered a huge upset and win this series?
Don’t forget that you can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalklRadio.com, but the podcast is also available for you to listen to any time you want over at TuneIn.com.
You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime
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