Marlins Man is a multi-sport icon. He does not play any sports, but is at all sporting events. He stands out because he goes to baseball games, football games, hockey games, and even appeared at a horse race decked out in an orange Marlins jersey and an orange Marlins visor. The true Marlins Man, Laurence Leavy, found out he had liver cancer. He no longer wanted to want the games and events on TV, but wanted to actually be there. Now, he is an icon across the sporting world.
Secret Minnesota Twins Meaning
The Minnesota Twins have not be known for winning in the past few years, but their home jersey continues to suggest why the fans show up. On this jersey, Twins is displayed in blue letters across the blank front. Underneath the franchise name is a line. The line is under the “win” portion of Twins, putting emphasis on their (hopefully) winning nature.
Cody Bellinger Hits for the Cycle!
On July 15, 2017, Dodgers’ rookie sensation Cody Bellinger accomplished one of the hardest feats in baseball. He hit for the cycle. The cycle in baseball is when a batter hits a single, double, triple, and home run in the same game. As of July 16, there have been five cycles this year: Nolan Arenado, Wil Myers, Carlos Gomez, Trea Turner, and now Cody Bellinger. Along with his four hits, Cody drove in three RBIs and scored two runs. He became the youngest player to hit for the cycle at exactly 22 years of age and became the first Dodger rookie to hit for the cycle.
AL East Rivalry News and Notes
The Yankees and Red Sox have a storied rivalry involving players. Bucky Dent, Aaron Boone, Babe Ruth. These are some of the names that make these games tense. But before the 2017 mid season series, both teams suffered setbacks. Yankees starting pitcher Michael Pineda is most likely out for the season with a partially torn UCL. There have been rumors that the Yankees would deal Pineda at the Trade Deadline, for he is in his last year of his contract. Now, the Yankees are stuck with an injured arm. Pineda is seeking a second opinion, but it looks grim for the tall righty. On the Boston side of the things, the Sox management parted with possibly the worst contract in team history, Pablo Sandoval. The former San Francisco hero signed a five year, $95 million dollar deal with the Red Sox after winning a World Series with the Giants in 2016. Sandoval played just 161 games over his first three years of the contract. The Red Sox owe him more than $50 million dollards over the last two years of his deal.
Quick Review: All-Star Week
The 2017 All-Star week was fun with festivities, but the game itself was on the slow side. It was a game of pitching dominance, allowing one run on both sides in the ninth. The only home run for National League was Yadier Molina and the American League was Robinson Cano’s game winning blast in the tenth inning. Craig Kimbrel collected the win, Andrew Miller the save, and Wade Davis the loss. Cano was named the All-Star Game MVP for going 1 for 2 with said home run.
The night before was the energetic Home Run Derby. The defending champ Giancarlo Stanton lost in the first round to the eighth seed Gary Sanchez. Mike Moustakas lost to Miguel Sano, Cody Bellinger won over Charlie Blackmon, and Aaron Judge came up from behind a 22 home run mark set by opponent Justin Bour. In the semifinals, Judge won against another rookie sensation, Cody Bellinger. Gary Sanchez fell to Sano. Sano did end up losing to Aaron Judge, who is your 2017 Home Run Derby champion.
Explaining the Retro Brewers Logo
The Milwaukee Brewers retro logo from the 80s and is being reused during present times is normal in plain sight. But, it indeed has a secret meaning.
The logo, at first glance, looks like a baseball mitt. If you look closer, you will see a baseball in the mitt with only one visible seam. The cool part is that the fingers of the mitt is actually the scripted “M” from the Milwaukee on the jerseys. The thumb and the palm are connected to make a “B.” The “B” is for Brewers.The letters are blue and the outline is yellow, the team’s primary colors. Overall, pretty hard work from the team’s graphic design team proved to be great in creating a logo with a double meaning.
The Bleacher Creature Archives Coming Into Play!
As you probably know, The Bleacher Creature has had some content and categories that have been a washout. We will know be featuring a section with the old categories! Enjoy and please share with your friends if you want to bring back some of the old content!
Aaron Judge News & Notes
Yankees’ right fielder Aaron Judge has had a monster season this year. In back to back games, Judge both tied and broke Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio’s record of home runs for a rookie. Joe previously had 29 home runs in 1936 rookie campaign. He played in 138 games. On the other hand, Aaron Judge was able to collect 30 home runs in 82 games of the current 2017 season. According to ESPN.com, Judge is on track to hit 57 home runs by the end of the season.
The Training Dilemma: Inside the Intense Training and Surgeries That Kills Our Players
It is the 21st century. Everybody desires to be the best at something. They need to be the biggest, the strongest, and the fastest. They need to be consistent, young, and energetic. These traits have transitioned not only from the real world, but the baseball kingdom. Take a look at Noah Syndergaard. He claimed to gain 17 pounds of muscle in the offseason so he could throw harder. As if 100 miles per hour wasn’t enough, he had to push himself to the next level. Now, he is currently on the disabled list with an ailing bicep and lat. Also note, the other four Mets’ starters have also had stints on the DL.
Giancarlo Stanton. Another human monster. Weighing in at over 230 pounds, he is the biggest position player in the MLB besides the Yankees’ Aaron Judge. Stanton has never played a full season since 2014, which was cut short when he took a pitch to the face. He has spent time on the shelf due to hand and wrist problems.
Players these days are getting hurt due to over working themselves. Back in the day, hurting yourself in baseball was never heard of. If you did end up hurting yourself, you played through it. Take Mickey Mantle for instance. Mantle dealt with injuries every season of his 18 year career. Despite dealing with constant pains, he was able to put together a great career, perhaps the greatest career for a switch hitter. He was also smoking and drinking at the same time, wrecking his body even more. If Mickey could play through it, why can’t today’s players work through injuries? The answer is simple: medical advances.
Ever since Tommy John underwent ground breaking surgery, the medical world has been rapidly progressing. Now, there are treatments for every thing. Draining fluids of joints, removing damaged ligaments, even taking out ribs to relieve pressure. It is no secret that some players abuse these procedures to increase draft stock. Some players in high school undergo Tommy John surgery to get it out of the way. What some of these people don’t seem to know is that these surgeries don’t leave you with a fresh ligament or elbow. In fact, they could weaken the body. The process for TJ surgery is to remove the damaged ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in the arm and replace it with a less used UCL from the wrist or other joint. As mentioned before, it might seem the human specimen has a fresh UCL, but they do indeed have a ligament performing a role it wasn’t created for.
When you put the over training factor into this mix, things get a whole lot worse. As shown in the Giancarlo Stanton/Noah Syndergaard point, players are training harder than ever. But now with these players having mix and match tendons and ligaments, the bodies can’t handle these. You can’t expect a wrist ligament to withstand the same pressure a elbow UCL has.It’s just bound for disaster. The reason why players are getting hurt so easily is now clearly exhibited. You just cannot have the players waking up at six in the morning to do workouts when they have the ligaments where there not supposed to be. If Major League Baseball wants to protect their players, they should put workout caps and surgery bans to limit injury. Besides, what’s a little decrease in velocity and home runs compared to people living their lives in pain and in casts?
BP Report with Jacoby Nolnaho: Old Timers’ Day
On June 25, 2017, I arrived at Yankee Stadium at 10:00. It was the 71st annual Old Timers’ Day. After an hour of absolute nothing, the Yankees greats finally took batting practice. Since these legends are getting up there in age, the baseballs were not flying out. My one (and only) chance came when a weak dribbler hit against the wall. Four time World Champion Jeff Nelson came over a tossed me the ball (For those of you who don’t know, I have actually met Jeff Nelson at an AT&T grand opening celebration). And as many of pitchers have noticed, the seams on the 2017 baseball around more thin and tighter wounded compared to the 2016 baseballs. This has been thought to have happened after the incline in home runs. Old Timers’ Day was fun, but it was extremely hot.
For the actual game, I was sitting in home run territory right near the left field foul. Despite an epic comeback from a 7-0 devastate, the Yankees fell to the Texas Rangers 7-6. In this game, Yankees outfielder Aaron Hicks left with a rib cage/oblique injury and took an MRI. Team officials say he will be out 3 to 4 weeks.