HOME
*





Tom Haller
Thomas Frank Haller (June 23, 1937 – November 26, 2004) was an American professional baseball player, coach, and executive. He played as a catcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1961 to 1972, most notably as a member of the San Francisco Giants where he became a three-time All-Star. Haller ended his playing career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Detroit Tigers. Haller was considered one of the top catchers in the National League (NL) during the late 1960s. In 2008, he was part of the inaugural class of inductees into the San Francisco Giants Wall of Fame. Major League career Haller was born in Lockport, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois, where he played as a quarterback for the Illinois Fighting Illini football team. During his time at the university, Haller was also a member of Theta Chi fraternity. Haller was signed by the San Francisco Giants, as an amateur free agent, in 1958. After playing in the minor leagues for three seasons, he made his major ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Catcher
Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the ( home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the catcher is also called upon to master many other skills in order to field the position well. The role of the catcher is similar to that of the wicket-keeper in cricket. Positioned behind home plate and facing toward the outfield, the catcher can see the whole field, and is therefore in the best position to direct and lead the other players in a defensive play. The catcher typically calls for pitches using hand signals. The calls are based on the pitcher's mechanics and strengths, as well as the batter's tendencies and weaknesses. Essentially, the catcher controls what happens during the game when the ball is not "in play". Foul tips, bouncing balls in the dirt, and contact with runners during plays at the plate are all events to be handle ...
[...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 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Platoon System
A platoon system in baseball or American football is a method for substituting players in groups (platoons), to keep complementary players together during playing time. Baseball In baseball, a platoon is a method of sharing playing time, where two players are selected to play a single defensive position. Usually, one platoon player is right-handed and the other is left-handed. Typically the right-handed half of the platoon is played on days when the opposing starting pitcher is left-handed and the left-handed player is played otherwise. The theory behind this is that generally players hit better against their opposite-handed counterparts, and that in some cases the difference is extreme enough to warrant complementing the player with one of opposite handedness. Strategy Right-handed batters have an advantage against left-handed pitchers and left-handed batters benefit from facing right-handed pitchers. This is because a right-handed pitcher's curveball breaks to the left, from h ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


1962 San Francisco Giants Season
The 1962 San Francisco Giants season was the Giants' 80th year in Major League Baseball, their fifth year in San Francisco since their move from New York following the 1957 season, and their third at Candlestick Park. The team finished in first place in the National League with a record of 103 wins and 62 losses. They finished the season tied with their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, for first place in the league, necessitating a three-game tiebreaker playoff to determine the pennant winner. The Giants won two of the three games to take their first National League title since moving to San Francisco, making the Giants the first NL Champions of the 162-game schedule era. They went on to the 1962 World Series, where they lost in seven games to the New York Yankees. The Giants had 1,552 hits in the regular season, the most in the club's San Francisco era. Offseason * October 10, 1961: 1961 Major League Baseball expansion draft **Joey Amalfitano was drafted from the Giants b ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Run Batted In
A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the batter bats a base hit which allows a teammate on a higher base to reach home and so score a run, then the batter gets credited with an RBI. Before the 1920 Major League Baseball season, runs batted in were not an official baseball statistic. Nevertheless, the RBI statistic was tabulated—unofficially—from 1907 through 1919 by baseball writer Ernie Lanigan, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. Common nicknames for an RBI include "ribby" (or "ribbie"), "rib", and "ribeye". The plural of "RBI" is a matter of "(very) minor controversy" for baseball fans:; it is usually "RBIs", in accordance with the usual practice for pluralizing initialisms in English; however, some sources use "RBI" as the plural, on the basis tha ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Home Runs
In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run is usually achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles (or hitting either foul pole) without the ball touching the field. Far less common is the " inside-the-park" home run where the batter reaches home safely while the baseball is in play on the field. When a home run is scored, the batter is credited with a hit and a run scored, and a run batted in ( RBI) for each runner that scores, including himself. Likewise, the pitcher is recorded as having given up a hit and a run, with additional runs charged for each runner that scores other than the batter. Home runs are among the most popular aspects of baseball and, as a result, prolific home run hitters are usually the most popular among fans and consequently ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




1958 San Francisco Giants Season
The 1958 San Francisco Giants season was the franchise's first season in San Francisco, California and 76th season overall. The Giants' home ballpark was Seals Stadium. The team had a record of 80–74 finishing in third place in the National League standings, twelve games behind the NL Champion Milwaukee Braves. Of the broadcast team, Russ Hodges left his former broadcasting partners in New York and for that season was joined on both KTVU and KSFO by Lon Simmons. Offseason * December 2, 1957: Tony Taylor was drafted from the Giants by the Chicago Cubs in the 1957 rule 5 draft. * December 2, 1957: 1957 minor league draft ** Lee Tate was drafted from the Giants by the St. Louis Cardinals. **Ramón Conde was drafted from the Giants by the Kansas City Athletics. * December 10, 1957: Freddy Rodríguez was traded by the Giants to the Chicago Cubs for Tom Poholsky. * March 24, 1958: Foster Castleman was purchased from the Giants by the Baltimore Orioles for $30,000. * Prior t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Free Agent
In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is allowed to solicit offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules. Types Terms Unrestricted free agent Unrestricted free agents are players without a team. They have either been released from their club, had the term of their contract expire without a renewal, or were not chosen in a league's draft of amateur players. These people, generally speaking, are free to entertain offers from all other teams in the player's most recent league and elsewhere and to decide with whom to sign a contract. Players who have been bought out of league standard contracts may have restrictions within that league, such as not being able to sign with the buy-out club for a period of time in the NH ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Theta Chi
Theta Chi () is an international Fraternities and sororities, college fraternity. It was founded on April 10, 1856 at Norwich University then-located in Norwich, Vermont, and has initiated more than 200,000 members and currently has over 8,700 collegiate members across North America. History Founding and early years at Norwich Theta Chi was founded on April 10, 1856, at Norwich University in Norwich, Vermont, by two military cadets, Frederick Norton Freeman and Arthur Chase. A third man, Egbert Phelps, is considered to be the "assistant founder" for lending his help and advice to Freeman and Chase after transferring to Union College in 1854 (he was a member of the Chi Psi fraternity). The first initiates after the founders were Edward Bancroft Williston and Lorenzo Potter, both initiated on . Theta Chi's early history is closely connected to the history of Norwich University. In 1866 a massive fire devastated the university, completely destroying the Old South Barracks, where ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Illinois Fighting Illini Football
The Illinois Fighting Illini football program represents the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) level. The Fighting Illini are a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and compete in its West Division. Illinois claims five national championships and 15 Big Ten championships. History Early history (1890–1912) The University of Illinois fielded its first football team in 1890, under the direction of Scott Williams, the team's starting quarterback who also served as the team's head coach. The team finished with a record of 1–2. Robert Lackey took over the reins for the program's second season in 1891, and the team finished undefeated with a mark of 6–0. In July 1892, several days after graduating from Dartmouth, Edward K. Hall was hired by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to serve as head football coach and director of physical training at a salary of $1,000. H ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Quarterback
The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually considered the leader of the offense, and is often responsible for calling the play in the huddle. The quarterback also touches the ball on almost every offensive play, and is almost always the offensive player that throws forward passes. When the QB is tackled behind the line of scrimmage, it is called a sack. Overview In modern American football, the starting quarterback is usually the leader of the offense, and their successes and failures can have a significant impact on the fortunes of their team. Accordingly, the quarterback is among the most glorified, scrutinized, and highest-paid positions in team sports. '' Bleacher Report'' describes the signing of a starting quarterback as a Catch ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]