Tagged: Mel Harder

Number 18 and other news!

Hey y’all!

First of all thank you so much for reading and commenting and making this blog such a success. It means a lot. This week I was #18 on the Latest Leaders. Now I appreciate your efforts to move me up to 24 but you tried a little bit too hard this week. JK 😀 Thanks so much. This week my dedication goes to:
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Mel Harder of the Cleveland Indians. 
Mel was only 18 when he entered the Majors in 1928. He was from Nebraska and #18 is a retired number for the Indians in his honor. Harder was a pitcher with the Indians organization from 1928-1947, a 20-year career. His career average ERA was 3.80. He played in a total of 582 games with 223 wins and 186 losses. Not too bad. He had over 1100 strikeouts and pitched in almost 3500 innings. He averaged about 6 innings per game. He pitched a career 181 complete games with 25 shutouts. He was a 4-time All Star from 1934-1937. He missed the World Series by one year so he never got a chance to pitch in a Championship.
Mel Harder Quote: 

“I didn’t have much of a curveball until I got to professional ball. I also had to learn a change-up when I made it to the pros. I got a lot of batters out with that fastball sinker. But over the years, I had to mix it up more.”

Thanks to baseball-almanac.com for the Mel Harder stats and picture. I do not know what just happened to my font but it won’t go back to normal. I apologize. It is really bothering me.

The Indians are playing an intrasquad game later I will be back with an update on how that went later.

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Today on the Indians Website there was an article about Grady Sizemore’s “limitless potential.” Grady gets better and better every year. The only he area he did not improve on last year was his batting average which dropped to .268 due in part to his low average against left-handed pitching (.224). He also strikes out more than he should as a leadoff hitter but I do not rally blame him for that. He is the type of player who you can tell hates walking and will let that get in the way sometimes. However he reached career highs in home runs, steals, and RBI’s last year. I firmly believe he will improve on all of those areas this year as well. The thing with Grady is he does not even think about or even know about things like that. Last year when he got his 100th steal a reporter congratulated and Casey Blake told him that he had no idea he was even close to that and Grady replied that he did not either. He does not let stats and records and personal success get in the way of playing for his team and what is best for them. That is refreshing to see in this age of steroids and focus on the individuals in baseball. He reminds me that baseball is a team sport and while the individual is important if he focuses on helping his team everything else will come naturally. 
Grady quote: 
“I don’t stress home runs or those kinds of numbers. I stress wins. If you’re trying to help your team win, those kinds of things take care of themselves.”

Thanks to mlb.com and Anthony Castrovince for the article on Grady. Look my font changed again. Joy! Not. I apologize again for my inability when it comes to computers.

I will put the Hat List up later witht he Intrasquad article. I have not really been out today. I do not have class until 2 so I am currently sitting in a tent outside of Littlejohn so we can get more front row basketball tickets.