Trivia Tuesday: MLB "Lifers"

When Lance Berkman was traded to the Yankees at the end of July, he lost his status as a Major League Baseball "lifer". A lifer--as defined by ESPN--is a player (pitcher or position player) who has played with only one team for at least ten years. In this case team is defined as Major League team--this person could have very well have come up in another team's minor leagues. There are currently 11 MLB lifers: can you name them?

Bonus question: On the flip side of the loyalty scale, there are 9 active Major Leaguers who have player for 4 or more franchises and compiled at least 300 home runs. Can you name them?

Answer in the comments below. I'll reveal the correct answer later. Good luck!

A Brief History of One-Game Playoffs

Baseball-Reference has a list of all-time tiebreaker playoff games (* = Division Tiebreaker, ** = Wild Card Tiebreaker). The National League, for some reason, used best-of-3 tiebreakers through 1962. The only one-game playoff in that period was in the AL when the Indians beat the Red Sox in 1948. But below are the 7 one-game playoffs since 1962. Tomorrow the Twins and Tigers will make it 8.

Year	Lg	Date	Winning Team		Losing Team	Score	Winning Pitcher	Losing Pitcher
1978*	AL	10/2/1978	Yankees	@	Red Sox	5-4	Guidry	Torrez
1980*	NL	10/6/1980	Astros	@	Dodgers	7-1	Niekro	Goltz
1995*	AL	10/2/1995	Mariners		Angels	9-1	Johnson	Langston
1998**	NL	9/28/1998	Cubs		Giants	5-3	Trachsel	Gardner
1999**	NL	10/4/1999	Mets	@	Reds	5-0	Leiter	Parris
2007**	NL	10/1/2007	Rockies		Padres	9-8	Ortiz	Hoffman
2008*	AL	9/30/2008	White Sox		Twins	1-0	Danks	Blackburn

Analysis: No team in the past 30 years has won a tiebreaker playoff game and won the World Series. The only team to make it to the World Series after the one-game playoff in the past 30 years was the 2007 Colorado Rockies.

The 1978 Yankees-Red Sox game is the most famous as it featured Bucky Dent's home-run in Fenway (or the infamous Bucky f@$ing Dent, as he's known in New England). The 2007 playoff ended after Trevor Hoffman blew the save and Matt Holliday slid just past the catcher's tag (the Rockies would sweep their way through the next two rounds before getting swept by the Red Sox). Randy Johnson pitched a complete game, 3-hitter with 12 Ks in 1995 (and then went 2-0 against the Yankees in the ALDS). The Mets won the ALDS before losing the ALCS to the Braves on a Kenny Rogers walk-off walk. The 1980 Astros, the 1998 Cubs and the 2008 White Sox wouldn't make it out of the first round of the playoffs.

So since the Yankees won the 1978 World Series, the winning one-game playoff winners are a combined 4-6 in their following playoff series.

Some People Should Keep Their Mouth Shut

I think it's always true that some people should keep their mouths shut. But the past few days, I think there a few more than normal.

• Jim Rice decided it was a good idea to use his speech to a bunch of Little Leaguers to rip Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez, according to LoHud. Peter Abraham asks if it's too late to vote Jim Rice out of the Hall of Fame for being a "no-class idiot"? Why exactly did they vote him in in the first place? Rob Neyer responds by saying: "running down today's players is nothing but boring, self-aggrandizing poppycock."

• Our next idiot is Jerry Manuel show decided it was a good idea to use David Wright's concussion as an opportunity to rip on Ryan Church. Earth to Jerry, despite the injuries to your team this year, you're not totally immune. You haven't done a bang up job. Your team failed down the stretch last year. And you're supposed to be a bigger person. Ripping a guy who is no longer on the team is petty and immature.

• Speaking of the Mets, their GM is not doing much to improve his reputation. From Rob Neyer:

  • Whatever else might happen today, this is going to rank as the strangest news of the day:

  Jon Heyman has reported that the Giants claimed Gary Sheffield off the waiver wire, but the two teams could not come to an agreement on a deal.

  Last night, I contacted one of my sources, a Giants front office official, who confirmed for me that Omar Minaya was asking for "high level talent” for his aging slugger, something that Giants GM Brian Sabean was not willing to part with.

  We were also told that there is a strong possibility that Minaya will be asking for the same type of "high level talent” for Billy Wagner, if and when he decides to finally move him.

  "Minaya just doesn't get it, does he? No, he doesn't. Maybe he'll blame it on Adam Rubin.

• Three's a charm with the Mets, it seems. This has to be the most bizarre. You knew that Gary Sheffield wouldn't be a good citizen all year long. Via the New York Post: "The Mets rejected his bizarre request for a contract extension. So Sheffield, according to sources, initially became verbally abusive, then demanded he be released or traded to the Marlins, then threatened to return home to Florida, and finally just pulled himself from the starting lineup." According to the New York Times, he doesn't remember this today but can't understand why the Mets didn't send him to San Francisco. Joel Sherman think that this guarantees Sheffield unemployment in 2010. Nice work, Sheff. No wonder no one wants to go watch the Mets.

• Lastly, someone made a claim on Jose Valverde but the Houston Astros pulled him back. Why? Their General Manager, Ed Wade, doesn't want to trade anyone but Ivan Rodriguez. Ummm...This team is going no place this season (9 games back in the Wild Card, 10 games back in the NL East, and -71 run differential) and they have Valverde, LaTroy Hawkins, Miguel Tejada and maybe a few other pieces they could dump, save some money, and maybe pick up a few prospects. All three become free agents after the season is over. Nice way to run the organization.
  

Some people are better off keeping quiet.

(pictures from the Providence Journal, Getty Images, Amazin' Avenue, New York Daily News, and Delaware Online)

Aramark Killing Baseball in Houston

Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball wrote on NBC Sports about the Houston Astros gouging their fans:

As Major League Baseball does all it can to get recession-strapped fans through the turnstiles, a day at 29 of 30 MLB ballparks includes the option of bringing your own sandwiches, snacks, bottled water, soft drinks or, in some cases, all of the above. That leaves the Astros, and their stance on the matter is stated in their A-to-Z fan guide for Minute Maid Park.

"Visitors may not bring food or beverage items into the ballpark," it says.

I was shocked to read that the Astros are the only club that does not allow outside food. I was even more shocked at how pathetic the Astros' justifications for this policy truly are. Owner Drayton McClane says that banning outside food at Astros games "has been kind of a tradition in Houston."

Well that's some fucking tradition. The Yankees don't put the names on the back of their jerseys, the Red Sox play a morning game on Patriots Day, the Cubs used to have Harry Caray sing "Take Me Out To the Ballgame"...and the Houston Astros make you throw out your sandwich before you come in.

I'll stop complaining about the Yankees incredibly dumb, impractical, and discriminatory bag policy and how they sometimes mistreat their fans. The article puts blame on McClane since, well, he is the owner. But there must be someplace else to place blame...

[Pam] Gardner the Astros' president for business operations] also noted that the Astros' relationship with Aramark, which operates concessions and/or premium food services at 13 [it's actually 15] MLB parks, including Minute Maid, "is predicated on their exclusivity on food and beverage."

Say no more! It's ARAMARK! And as a former Brandeis student who had Aramark as our dining services provider, I know how much Aramark sucked. Innermost Parts has some details here including one detail as what can only be described as a totally unethical relationship (as a compliance officer, I'm a bit horrified). So I'm not surprised that Aramark is behind supressing baseball fans in Houston because they did it so many times while I was a student at Brandeis.