22 June 2007

I've been out of town lately so my posts have been a little slow. Will and Kristi have been doing a fantastic job of keeping everything tickety-boo. The Braves are in a skid, a funk ... call it what you will. This isn't what I signed up to watch at the start of the season, and certainly not what I expected to see after our torrid start where, at one point, we were the best team in the bigs. Anyway, I wanted to draw your attention to an article I wrote at the Hardball Times last Monday on how perilously close Bobby Cox is to breaking the ejections record. Now, I'm sure you all knew this but I managed to find some cool data on the reasons that Cox was tossed. For instance, here are the top reasons:

Reason                Number
Balls and strikes     52
Safe/out call         16
Check swing           8
Called third strike   7
Balk call             5
Tag call              4
Bench Jockeying       2
Other                 36

Here are some of his more bizarre ejections:

Bizarre Ejections
1. Fight after HBP
2. Home run/foul pole call
3. Spitting in ump's face during argument
4. Protesting attempt to speed up game

Interesting stuff. In all likelihood the record will be Cox's before the break. At least it will give Braves fans a small something to celebrate! You can read the rest of the article here.