Sometimes it helps to look more closely at the box scores

[supertyphoon]

Egg on my face ...

:oops:

... for letting HAL use WADE BOGGS at catcher while Mickey Cochrane was injured for 10 games instead of my backup C. The reason? Willard Hershberger is listed as DH, and HAL refuses to swap out the DH into a defensive position in the event of injury.

I only noticed this when I saw [b:15769b8797]W.Boggs MAR 25[/b:15769b8797] listed on the Opponent Steals leader board.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=368218

[dharmabums]

Definitely goes into the dope-slap category, eh? :D

So, why do you suppose HAL chose Boggs to do the sacrifice? Could have chosen your CF and then put Boggs in CF, or some other kind of HAL-crazy thing.

[visick]

Damn...thought he had a better arm than that.

Maybe he needed more chicken before the games... :P

[Mr Baseball World]

I think HAL does a virtual musical chairs and the one left standing gets handed the gear. :lol:

[PotKettleBlack]

HAL seems to prefer the third baseman catch when your backup C is otherwise occupied.

Thus, Boggs. One wonders why 3rd, other than it's as good a place to put an aging/converted catcher as anywhere else (like LF or 1B)... Torre, Chance, Beckwith(?)...

[springer0432]

nexrad, at the time it happened did you have hersh listed as backup catcher plus a backup listed at DH?

[supertyphoon]

[quote:0992bd5ddf="springer0432"]nexrad, at the time it happened did you have hersh listed as backup catcher plus a backup listed at DH?[/quote:0992bd5ddf]

I use a straight RHP and LHP lineup, and haven't tried using the depth chart. No backups, so I pay the consequences for my stupidity. But looking on the bright side, I've learned my lesson - so it shouldn't happen again.

[katzenjammer]

[quote:f07f65dc38="PotKettleBlack"]HAL seems to prefer the third baseman catch when your backup C is otherwise occupied.

Thus, Boggs. One wonders why 3rd, other than it's as good a place to put an aging/converted catcher as anywhere else (like LF or 1B)... Torre, Chance, Beckwith(?)...[/quote:f07f65dc38]


You didn't list Mike (ol' marble-mouth) Shannon in your litany. In his brief career with the Cardinals in the '60s he came up as an outfielder but was then converted to third base and third-string catcher. Does SOM have him listed as such?

[PotKettleBlack]

I think Mike Shannon is doing better as a restauranteur. Nice place in downtown St. Louis. Right by the ballpark.

[george barnard]

This thread got me thinking of other position players turned catcher. How about Bill Sudakis. Never played an inning of catcher in the minors or the majors, and is the Dodger starting 3B in 1969. And then, the Dodgers convert him to catcher, splitting the position in 1970 between him, Haller and Torborg. His knees go, and ends up in the AL as a DH, 3B, RF and C. His 1973 card with Texas might be interesting for us: a switch-hitting catcher with .255/.320/.494 splits (15 hr in 235 abs). Apparently he couldn't see very well, either. Hey, it's not like he was an ump or something.

[quote:f1a2ef11c0]The whole eyesight thing got me thinking about former Yankee Bill Sudakis. I always remember that his baseball card said that he was “legally blind.” You don’t see that, everyday, on a ball player. And, I’ll always remember how Sparky Lyle, in the Bronx Zoo, wrote that then Yankees manager Bill Virdon would try and flex his arm muscles when addressing the team. And, every time Virdon would do it, Bill Sudakis, who had tremendous arms, would stand in the corner, behind Virdon, doing it too – cracking up the whole team.

The [Pfister Hotel] was the scene of the most infamous fights in modern baseball history, which has twice been described to me with the phrase “Wild West Saloon Brawl.” The perpetrators were the 1974 Yankees, arriving in Milwaukee on September 30 for the end of the season with a slim chance to reclaim the lead in the A.L. East. Instead, backup catcher Rick Dempsey and backup utilityman Bill Sudakis, already jabbing on the plane, both tried to get through the Pfister’s revolving front door.

The breaking of the logjam at the door seemed to propel the two men into each other. The next thing that amazed on-lookers knew, furniture and players were flying around the lobby (the New York Times elegantly called it “brief but violent”). At least one vintage lamp was used like a javelin, and one version of the story has a chair being launched, either by Dempsey or Sudakis. Dempsey later told me that he knew if Sudakis, or somebody, didn’t stop him, he was going to kill Sudakis with his bare hands.

Unfortunately, the late Bobby Murcer decided he had to break it up with his bare hands. Murcer, a month away from being traded to the Giants for Bobby Bonds, also broke his pinky in the process and had to be scratched from the do-or-die game the next night. His replacement in rightfield, Lou Piniella, backed away from a tweener fly ball in the 7th, costing the Yankees the lead, in a game they would lose in extra innings – and in the process, be eliminated.[/quote:f1a2ef11c0]

[quote:f1a2ef11c0]By 1970 the Dodgers had already moved on to a new starter at third, Billy Grabarkewitz (who would give way to Steve Garvey, who would give way to Bobby Valentine, who would give way to Ken McMullen, who would give way to ... that guy that stuck), and half of Sudakis' games were at catcher.[/quote:f1a2ef11c0]

[img:f1a2ef11c0]http://cnt.toppsmillion.com/img/cards/1971-BB-TS1-253-NA_F_285x412.jpg[/img:f1a2ef11c0]