Jose Bautista and an American Hero

If you thought there is no precedent for the staggering power surge experienced by Jose Bautista at age 29 think again.  Meet Vietnam war veteran Champ Summers.

Here are John Junior Summers career splits-

Age 28-32: 352 AB, 8 HR, .318 SLG%

Age 33-34: 653 AB, 38 HR, .528 SLG%

Since Champ was serving his country during the late ’60s he didn’t play pro-ball until age 25. After hitting below the Mendoza line (.199) in 3 seasons for the Reds he was traded for a bag of balls to the Tigers mid-season in 1979.  Note the slugging rates above through age 32.  After moving to Old Tiger Stadium, Champ posted the following SLG% during the summer of ’79:

June .556

July .673

Aug .641

Sept .566

Champ was the 11th best hitter on the ’79 Reds and the best hitter on the ’79 Tigers!  HR’s continued to fly off his bat at age 34 in 1980 (.504 SLG%) before he reverted to the mean in the strike shortened season of ’81 (.358 SLG%).  He produced zero major league value in his final 4 seasons thus proving that even a sample size of 650 ABs can be small.

Thank you Champ for your service to the United States.  We salute you!

Why Ron Paul is anti-Cobb, Ruth & Wagner

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed the ‘National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act’

GovTrack.us shares with us the following details of the bill:

1. 14,000,000 baseball fans have visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
2. There will be a surcharge of $35 per coin for the $5 coin, $10 for the dollar coin and $5 for the half-dollar coin.
3. All surcharges shall be promptly paid by the Secretary to the National Baseball Hall of Fame to help finance its operations.

Congressman Richard Hanna, a graduate of the same college in Oregon that Steve Jobs dropped-out of is sponsoring the bill. He now lives 50 miles north of Cooperstown…..

BTW: Ron Paul (TX) was one of only three U.S. Reps. to vote against the bill. What does Rachel Maddow think about that?!?!

from Apple to Jobs

In honor of Steve Jobs we present the last “Apple” to play professional baseball…

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=apple-001har

In addition, it’s always worth checking out Steve’s commencement address at the University of Stanford in 2005.  Very thought-provoking and inspiring:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html