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Rafael Belliard
Rafael Leonidas Belliard Matias (born October 24, 1961) is a retired professional baseball shortstop who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1982 to 1998 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves. He was a member of Atlanta's 1995 World Series winning team against the Cleveland Indians. He served as the infield and first base coach for the Detroit Tigers from 2006 to 2013. Playing career Belliard won a silver medal with the Dominican Republic at the 1979 Pan American Games, then signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates as an amateur free agent in 1980. He played in the Pirates' minor-league system, reaching the Double-A level in 1982. He made his major-league debut as a pinch runner against the New York Mets on September 6, 1982. It was not until 1986 that Belliard became a regular in the Pirates' lineup, batting .233 in 117 games. He remained a versatile yet seldom used player until 1990, when he left Pittsburgh and signed a free agent contract with the Atlanta Braves. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shortstop
Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists who were typically poor at batting and were often placed at the bottom of the batting order. Today, shortstops are often able to hit well and many are placed at the top of the lineup. In the numbering system used by scorers to record defensive plays, the shortstop is assigned the number 6. More hit balls go to the shortstop than to any other position, as there are more right-handed hitters in baseball than left-handed hitters, and most hitters have a tendency to pull the ball slightly. Like a second baseman, a shortstop must be agile, for example when performing a 4-6-3 double play. Also, like a third baseman, the shortstop fields balls hit to the left side of the infield, where a strong arm is needed to throw out a batter-runner b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Professional Baseball
Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional leagues Americas United States and Canada Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada (founded in 1869) consists of the National League (founded in 1876) and the American League (founded in 1901). Historically, teams in one league never played teams in the other until the World Series, in which the champions of the two leagues played against each other. This changed in 1997 with the advent of interleague play. As of 2022, the Philadelphia Phillies, founded in 1883, are the oldest continuous same-name, same-city franchise in both Major League Baseball and all of American professional sports. In addition to the major leagues, many North American cities and towns feature minor league teams. An organization officially styled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expansion franchise in 1969, and has played in four World Series, winning in 1985 and 2015, and losing in 1980 and 2014. Outside of a dominant 10 year stretch between 1976 to 1985, and a brief, albeit dominant resurgence from 2014 to 2015, the Royals have been one of the worst franchises in baseball, missing the playoffs 34 of the previous 36 years. The name "Royals" pays homage to the American Royal, a livestock show, horse show, rodeo, and championship barbecue competition held annually in Kansas City since 1899, as well as the identical names of two former Negro league baseball teams that played in the first half of the 20th century. (One a semi-pro team based in Kansas City in the 1910s and 1920s that toured the Midwest and a California ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Retrosheet
Retrosheet is a nonprofit organization whose website features box scores of Major League Baseball (MLB) games from 1906 to the present, and play-by-play narratives for almost every contest since the 1930s. It also includes scores from every major league game played since the 1871 season (the inception of organized professional baseball), as well as all All-Star Games and postseason games, including the World Series. History Retrosheet informally began in 1989, through the efforts of Dr. David Smith, a biology professor at the University of Delaware, and fellow baseball enthusiasts. Building on momentum begun by writer Bill James' Project Scoresheet in 1984, Smith brought together a host of like-minded individuals to compile an accessible database of statistical information previously unavailable to the general public. Smith originally contacted teams and sportswriters in order to gain access to their scorebooks, while other contributors researched old newspapers for play-by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern League (baseball, 1993–2010)
The Northern League was an independent minor professional baseball league. It was not affiliated with Major League Baseball or the organized minor leagues. The league was founded in 1993 and folded after its 2010 season when financial stability became a problem. The three teams remaining in the league when it folded joined with the remaining teams in United League Baseball and the Golden Baseball League to form a new independent organization called the North American League. History The modern Northern League was founded by Miles Wolff. Wolff started the league after many midwestern cities contacted him (through his affiliation with ''Baseball America'') asking how they could get a minor league team. After visiting some of them, most notably Duluth, Minnesota and its Wade Stadium, he began contacting potential owners to start the league. The league was structured to where teams were not allowed to load their rosters with ex-pros. Players with five or more years of professional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs
The Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs were an independent baseball league team based in Albany, New York from 1995 to 2002. The team played at Heritage Park in Colonie. The Diamond Dogs competed in the Northeast League from 1995–98 and then in the Northern League Northern League may refer to: Sport Baseball * Northern League (baseball, 1902–71), a name used by several minor leagues that operated in the upper midwestern U.S. and Manitoba from 1902 to 1971 * Northern League (baseball, 1993–2010), an indep ... when the two leagues merged prior to the 1999 season. The Diamond Dogs won the Northern League Championship in 1999. Their mascot was "Homer the Heritage Hound", a dog named for Heritage Park. Due to financial woes and competition from the new Tri-City ValleyCats, the Diamond Dogs folded after the 2002 season. External linksPhotographs of Heritage Park, former home of the Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs - ''Rochester Area Ballparks'' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baseball-Reference
Baseball-Reference is a website providing baseball statistics for every player in Major League Baseball history. The site is often used by major media organizations and baseball broadcasters as a source for statistics. It offers a variety of advanced baseball sabermetrics in addition to traditional baseball "counting stats". Baseball-Reference is part of Sports Reference, LLC; according to an article in Street & Smith's ''Sports Business Journal'', the company's sites have more than one million unique users per month. History Founder Sean Forman began developing the website while working on his Ph.D. dissertation in applied math and computational science at the University of Iowa. While writing his dissertation, he had also been writing articles on and blogging about sabermetrics. Forman's database was originally built from the '' Total Baseball'' series of baseball encyclopedias. The website went online in April 2000, after first being launched in February 2000 as part of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP) of 1871–1875 (often called simply the "National Association"), the NL is sometimes called the Senior Circuit, in contrast to MLB's other league, the American League, which was founded 25 years later and is called the "Junior Circuit". Both leagues currently have 15 teams. After two years of conflict in a "baseball war" of 1901–1902, the two eight-team leagues agreed in a "peace pact" to recognize each other as "major leagues". As part of this agreement, they drafted rules regarding player contracts, prohibiting "raiding" of rosters, and regulating relationships with minor leagues and lower level clubs. Each leag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Batting Average (baseball)
In baseball, batting average (BA) is determined by dividing a player's hits by their total at-bats. It is usually rounded to three decimal places and read without the decimal: A player with a batting average of .300 is "batting three-hundred". If necessary to break ties, batting averages could be taken beyond the .001 measurement. In this context, .001 is considered a "point", such that a .235 batter is 5 points higher than a .230 batter. History Henry Chadwick, an English statistician raised on cricket, was an influential figure in the early history of baseball. In the late 19th century he adapted the concept behind the cricket batting average to devise a similar statistic for baseball. Rather than simply copy cricket's formulation of runs scored divided by outs, he realized that hits divided by at bats would provide a better measure of individual batting ability. This is because while in cricket, scoring runs is almost entirely dependent on one's batting skill, in baseball ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Mets
The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league clubs based in New York City, the other being the American League's (AL) New York Yankees. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed NL teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. The team's colors evoke the blue of the Dodgers and the orange of the Giants. For the 1962 and 1963 seasons, the Mets played home games at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan before moving to Queens. From 1964 to 2008, the Mets played their home games at Shea Stadium, named after William Shea, the founder of the Continental League, a proposed third major league, the announcement of which prompted their admission as an NL expansion team. Since 2009, the Mets have played their home games at Citi Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinch Runner
In baseball, a pinch runner is a player substituted for the specific purpose of replacing another player on base. The pinch runner may be faster or otherwise more skilled at base-running than the player for whom the pinch runner has been substituted. Occasionally a pinch runner is inserted for other reasons (such as a double switch, ejection, or if the original player on base has become injured, such as having been hit by a pitch). A pinch runner is not credited with a game played for the purpose of consecutive game streaks, per Rule 10.24(c) of baseball's Official Rules. For example, in May 1984, Alfredo Griffin of the Toronto Blue Jays scored the winning run in a game, yet his consecutive game streak ended as he appeared only as a pinch runner. As with other substitutions in baseball, when a player is pinch run for, that player is removed from the game. The pinch runner may remain in the game or be substituted for at the manager's discretion. Earlier in baseball his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double-A (baseball)
Double-A (officially Class AA) is the second-highest level of play in Minor League Baseball in the United States since 1946, below only Triple-A. There are currently 30 teams classified at the Double-A level, one for each team in Major League Baseball, organized into three leagues: the Eastern League, the Southern League, and the Texas League. History Class AA ("Double-A") was established in 1912, as the new highest classification of Minor League Baseball. Previously, Class A had been the highest level, predating the establishment of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues—the formal name of Minor League Baseball—in 1901. Entering the 1912 season, three leagues were designated as Class AA: * American Association (AA) * International League (IL) * Pacific Coast League (PCL) Each of these leagues had previously been in Class A. Each remained in Class AA through 1945, then moved into Class AAA (" Triple-A") when it was established in 1946. No other leagu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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