HOF Koufax Hit with Line Drive by Ethier at Dodgers Training Camp!

(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

What if you were Andre Ethier right now? How would you feel? Relieved? Embarrassed (even though it was a fluke accident)? Scared? Would you be sending flowers? I know I would after hitting a line drive that could have killed a legendary Hall of Famer!

Yes, at the Los Angeles Dodgers spring training camp in Glendale, AZ a line drive ball, out of the hand of prospect Ross Stripling and off the bat of Andre Ethier, hit HOF pitcher Sandy Koufax in the head. These types of injuries are not to be taken lightly. A line drive ball does have the capacity to kill someone if hit in the right place in the head at a high speed. In 2012 Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon McCarthy, then with the Oakland Athletics, was hit in the head with a line drive during a game. He was out for the rest of the season and has since been experiencing seizures. Line drives do hit people and hurt them but it is an out of the ordinary occurrence.

That is why this must have been so insane for poor Mr. Ethier. What if you were the guy who killed the great Sandy Koufax? The Dodgers would have you traded where? Siberia? Just to have hurt someone is bad enough but a 78-year old legend? My own mind is blown at the thought. 

Getty Images

Anyway, the good news is that Mr. Koufax is alright. Koufax miraculously remained on his feet despite suffering a gash to his forehead. He was, however, immediately carted off by the team's trainers in a golf cart and was treated by medical staff. Reigning Cy Young Award winner, Clayton Kershaw, was sitting 20 feet away when Koufax was hit. He told reporters later, 

 "It didn't look good. I'm glad he walked off."

Such a scary moment for everyone involved but Koufax seemed to take it like the champ he is. He was later reported to be seen walking around the Dodgers clubhouse talking to some of the players. If there are any lasting side effects, as there have been with McCarthy, they remain to be seen. 

Koufax is a regular at the Dodgers spring training camp and works as a special assistant to team president Mark Walter. For the past two seasons he has also worked informally as a coach for the younger pitchers. 

Ethier later told the press that, of course, he was worried,

"Wouldn't you be? Not just because of who he is, but anybody who gets hit. It's scary. I've seen it happen."

Of course no player or fan ever wants to see a person hit by a line drive but in this case it did matter a little more because of who he hit. Dodgers pitching coach, Rick Honeycutt, seemed still shaken hours later saying,

"Everybody was like, 'Oh my gosh, You don't want anybody hit, but Sandy? I mean, you don't want that to happen to anybody, but especially him, he's out here to support and help us and be around. I just got a sick feeling from the sound of it."

Well, thankfully, the entire baseball world can breathe a sigh of relief that the Hall of Famer is safe and sound. I'm sure Andre Ethier is doing the exact same thing!

For More News From Around The League Visit MLB Nation!

La Russa, Maddux to Enter Hall of Fame with Blank Caps

The Baseball Hall of Fame announced  the cap selections for the 2014 inductees, Joe Torre, Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas on Thursday. The big surprises came from La Russa and even more so from Maddux, both of whom will enter the HOF with blank caps.

For La Russa this makes sense. I know a lot of fans who were asking, "A's or Cardinals? A's or Cardinals?" Living in Northern California most were hoping for La Russa to enter the hall as an Oakland Athletic. But the choice to enter such a prestigious, historical place as one thing or another has to be a hard decision to make, especially for La Russa and the HOF committee. The committee ultimately chooses the cap but they take the player/manager's wishes into their consideration.

Many forget that La Russa was not only the manager for the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals but also the Chicago White Sox. Granted his accomplishments in both St. Louis and Oakland were what made his career, it does make sense for that to be the real question. La Russa was manager of the White Sox for eight seasons, the Athletics for ten and the Cardinals for his final 16 seasons.

Read more on this story at Sports Unbiased - Your site for all Sports News, Polls and Predictions!

PED Cloud Still Rains on Some Players

Baseball Hall Of Fame. Most attribute this to the extreme use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) during the 1990s. A player even having his name mentioned in a sentence with a known PED user cost players, like Craig Biggio, to not receive the required 75 percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) for induction into the hall at Cooperstown, NY. Even though there still is not one shred of remotely credible evidence against Biggio, besides idle gossip, he was the closest to the hall in 2013 with 68.2 percent of the vote ....


Read the rest of my article on Sports Unbiased - Your site for all Sports News, Polls and Predictions!

Announcing the 2014 MLB Hall-Of-Fame Inductees

It’s now official for the first time since 1971 there will be six living inductees to Major League Baseball’s Hall-of-Fame. This includes three players along with the three managers, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussaand Joe Torre, who were voted into the hall in December 2013. The three players inducted into MLB’s HOF for the class of 2014 are pitcher Greg Maddux, pitcher Tom Glavine and first baseman and long-time designated hitter Frank “The Big Hurt” Thomas.

Last year’s Major League Baseball Hall-of-Fame announcement came and went rather quickly, leaving the baseball world in shock. It was the first year in baseball history that absolutely no one, living or deceased, was elected into the hall at Cooperstown, NY.  Of course it had to do with the issue of performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) and their rampant use during the 1990′s. Many of the eligible players had and still have that stigma attached to their names, that asterisk that will most likely haunt them forever regardless of their induction or not. In 2013, the only players to come close to the 75% of the vote needed for induction were Craig Biggio with 68.2% and pitcher Jack Morris with 67.7%. This year marks Biggio’s second year on the ballot and he came in just shy of induction with 74.8% of the vote. Morris actually lost votes from last year even with it being his 15th and final chance to become a member of baseball’s most elite club.

This morning all eyes were on Greg Maddux. There was talk, until MLB.com writer Ken Gurnick made his ballot public, that Maddux would make history by getting voted in unanimously. With that opportunity gone, Maddux still had a chance to make history by eclipsing Tom Seaver who was elected with 98.84% of the vote. Maddux, who played for the Chicago Cubs, most notably the Atlanta Braves, and the Los Angeles Dodgers over the course of his 22-year big league career, received 97.2% of the vote from the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).  Maddux’s resume is most certainly incredible. He accumulated 355 wins, won 4 consecutive Cy Young Awards and was an eight-time All-Star. Maddux is one of only ten pitchers to have over 300 career wins and 3,000 strike outs. He also won a record-setting 18 Gold Gloves as well as being the only player ever to win at least 15 games over 17 straight seasons. Needless to say he will now be immortalized where he belongs, in Cooperstown, NY.

The second player elected to the HOF today was part of one of baseball’s greatest pitching duos on the Atlanta Braves, alongside Greg Maddux. Tom Glavine spent the majority of his career vying for Cy Young Awards with his teammate taking home two in 1991 and 1998. Glavine, a ten-time All Star, was also a four-time Silver Slugger. He was MVP of the World Series in 1995 with the Braves winning both games two and six of the series. In his game six performance he pitched eight innings of one-hit shutout baseball with the only run in that game coming off a home run by his teammate David Justice. Glavine also played in four other World Series (1991, 1992, 1996, 1999) with the Braves and achieved success as a member of the New York Mets, playing there from 2003-2007, making two of his All-Star appearances during that span. He returned to the Braves for his final season in 2008.

The third and final player receiving baseball’s highest honor is one of the only players to spend the majority of his career as a designated hitter (he also played first base), playing for the Chicago White Sox from 1990-2005, the Toronto Blue Jays in 2007-2008 and had two stints with the Oakland Athletics in 2006 and again in 2008. Nicknamed “The Big Hurt” because of his powerful swing and home run hitting abilities, Frank Thomas was a menacing presence in the batter’s box.  Thomas was a five-time All-Star, two-time American League MVP (1993, 1994), four-time Silver Slugger, the AL batting champion in 1997 and the 2000 Comeback Player of the Year. But his real accomplishments lie in his overall numbers. He is tied for 18th all-time with 521 home runs and has a lifetime career batting average of .301. He is the only player to play seven consecutive seasons hitting over 20 home runs, 100 RBI, 100 walks while maintaining a .300 batting average. His final MLB game was played with the Oakland Athletics on August 29, 2008. He went 2-4 even after having spent most of the season on the disabled list.

This year’s Hall of Fame announcement far eclipses last year’s. With six living inductees, three managers and three players there is a lot to celebrate in the baseball world. The induction festivities and ceremony which will take place in Cooperstown from July 25-28 will be one for the ages.

For more on the MLB Hall of Fame Announcement check out MLB Nation.

Writer Gurnick Ensures Maddux Won't Be First Unanimous HOF Selection

Although Major League Baseball’s 2014 Hall of Fame class members will not be announced until Wednesday, it was predicted, even expected, by most that pitcher Greg Maddux would be the first unanimous HOF selection in MLB history. Maddux considered one of the greatest, if not the best pitcher of all time, had been tracking at 100 percent according to The Baseball Think Factory, where they have been keeping track of votes that have been released to the public early. That is until today.  

MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick, who covers the Los Angeles Dodgers, voted for only one player – five-time All-Star Jack Norris. Members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) are allowed to vote for the top ten players on the ballot they deem worthy to enter MLB’s HOF. Gurnick’s public release of his ballot has left many wonder what happened? And some would even ask does this guy have any idea what he is doing? 

According to Gurnick’s ballot he voted only for pitcher Jack Morris who has been on the ballot since 2000. Morris has never received more than 67 percent of the 75 percent needed to be inducted into Cooperstown and in some years he received as little as 30 percent of the vote. His case has been a divisive one among the writers over the years as his numbers can be seen as questionable. In the 1980s he gave up the most hits, home runs and earned runs of any other pitcher. On the other hand, he was a five-time All Star who played on four World Series Championship teams. Here is Gurnick’s reasoning on voting for only Morris:

Morris has flaws — a 3.90 ERA, for example. But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and Most Valuable Players votes in five. As for those who played during the period of PED use, I won’t vote for any of them.

Any player, he writes, “who played during the period of PED use”? So that means anyone who happened to be born during a certain time period and who had the audacity to be good enough to want to play Major League Baseball should be punished because of the actions of a few? Morris pitched from 1977-1994. Some of his contemporaries are admitted PED users like Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, but how does that constitute ruling out what would literally mean decades of players? 

And what about now? Even with the new PED policies put forth by the MLB, there are still players out there using. And more specifically when does the “PED period” he is talking about end, if ever? Also to be considered are the use of amphetamines, which were used as performance enhancing drugs beginning in the 1960′s. They are now banned by MLB (without a prescription). If the use of banned steriods is considered cheating then the use of banned amphetamines should be considered cheating too. There are players already in the HOF who were known amphetamine users. Do you remove them from the Hall?

Basically, Gurnick’s logic on going against, what could have been a monumental and historic decision by the BBWAA, just doesn’t add up. Unfortunately for Greg Maddux, who is the only player to win 15 games in 17 straight seasons and is the first of only two players (Randy Johnson) to win the Cy Young Award four times consecutively (1992-1995), he will not be the first player unanimously given baseball’s highest honor. Maddux will certainly get in on this, his first, HOF ballot but not in the historic fashion that was expected.

For more on Greg Maddux check out MLB Nation 

Why I'll always be a La Russa fan!

(and why I don't care if he goes in to the HOF as an Athletic or a Cardinal)

La Russa and Two Others Voted into Major League Baseball's Hall Of Fame on Monday!

It was announced Monday, on the first day of Major League Baseball's winter meetings, that legendary baseball managers Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre were unanimously voted into MLB's Hall Of Fame. Who votes on this? No, not the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BWAA) who as we know get the privilege of electing players to the Hall (The players elected by the BWAA will be announced on January 8, 2014). Managers are elected to the HOF by the 16 members of the Expansion Era Comittee and each of the were elected by a unanimous vote. 

Of course you should be able to guess who my favorite is  of the three, even though I do have mad respect for each of them.... come on it's the obvious choice of any A's fan - Tony La Russa. As the manager of the A's he led us to what is considered by many of my generation (three in a row in the 70's is obviously insanely HUGE) the most important World Series Title of all, 1989 where we defeated our arch rivals the lame ass gnats! Woohoo! Anyways, I digress because really that's all that matters to me! Well, not exactly because don't get me wrong I was as a young child happy to see my team succeed for many years, winning three American League Pennants under La Russa.  He was basically the inventor of the "closer" role that we know so well today. He took my personal fave baseball player of all time, starting pitcher and fellow Hall Of Famer Dennis Eckersley and turned him into a one inning shut down machine. **side note: I understand that yes, this is a true statement except for most notably game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Gibson, etc, etc. Yes! We all remember and still hate Kirk Gibson, however I personally (and I think ppl should follow suit) do NOT hate the Dodgers - they are the other mortal enemy of the gnats and they hate the Angels ... we have some things in common! Just saying** He is the only manager besides Sparky Anderson to have World Series Titles in both the AL and NL and has more managerial wins than any other manager save for Connie Mack and John McGraw. And he is one of few who have taken three different teams (A's, White Sox, Cardinals) to the postseason. The guy knows his stuff.

Recently there has been conversation on facebook, etc as to how much La Russa knew about the use of PED's during his tenure with well, mainly the A's but it applies to his other teams as well. Whether or not La Russa had knowledge of their usage during the time doesn't matter to me, he was an icon of my childhood who helped my team do what's most important and that's to win! It's the best gift a life long baseball fan can ask for especially at an impressionable age.

He also started the Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) whose head quarters are in my home town of Walnut Creek, CA and where I used to volunteer! The people at ARF are amazing, its shelters are no-kill and there are greAt programs for children to learn about animal rights, raising their pets, etc. He has done a greAt deal for the East Bay Area and that I appreciate! It will always be my own .... So I don't really care if he chooses to go into the Hall Of Fame wearing a Cardinals hat instead of an A's hat. He DID win two of his three World Series in Saint Louis but I would also not be surprised to see him wearing an A's uniform at his induction because of his ties and work in the Bay Area along with his managerial career with the Athletics .... either way, I'll always be a La Russa fan!

*Joe Torre long time player and manager of the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Braves, Cardinals and Dodgers ranks 5th on the all time wins list and is one of only five managers to win the World Series at least four times.

*Bobby Cox managed the Braves for a total of 25 seasons (in two stints besides 4 years with the Blue Jays), won 3 NL Manager of the Year Awards and one AL Manager of the Year title and is ranks fourth on the all time wins list ....