Griffey Gold Glove Catch Wraps Up PA Sweep of Dominicans

Ken Griffey Juniors gold glove catch of Manny Ramirez would-be base clearing double completed a 2-game sweep for Pennsylvania to start our Wild Card Pool of play.

The other opening series will be California against Venezuela, as each wild card team plays the other three in a two game series, and whoever finishes first advances to play our all-time divisional winners (Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida).

 Our previous blog noted we had just updated fielding ratings for all players on our 12 all-time World Baseball Classic teams. If we were still treating all players as average fielders, Pennsylvania would have scored twice in the top of the 8th inning, rather than losing 1-0.  

In the top of the 9th inning of the 2nd game trailing 1-0, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a grounder back to the mound that would have been an error for most pitchers, but Herb Pennock had been upgraded to an E2, CD4 on defense, so made the play. With two outs Vladimir Guerrero singled, and Rafael Furcal came in as a pinch runner. A z-play then came up and Manny Ramirez hit a deep drive that would have been a base clearing double to tie the game if Griffey were still an average E3, but due to upgrading him as a gold glover it turned into a series ending hit.

In the first game, Pennsylvania won 2-1 after the Dominicans failed to cash in early. In the second inning they loaded the bases with no outs but failed to score. In the 4th inning David Ortiz singled with one out. Cesar Cedeno pinch ran and stole second and third base, but they could not get him home.

Pennsylvania took the lead in the 4th when Honus Wagner led off with a triple and then scored on Griffey's single to make it 1-0. Buddy Bell then homered in the 7th inning. The Dominicans had another great chance in the 9th when Sparky Lyle was greeted by back-to-back doubles by Manny Ramirez and Felipe Alou to cut it to 2-1, but they could not score again.

In these pools a country or state's top two pitchers of all time pitch the 1st of 3 round robin series. We knew that would make runs hard to come by as the two greatest pitchers in Dominican Republic history (Pedro Martinez and Juan Marijual) faced the top two pitchers ever from Pennsylvania (Ed Walsh and Christy Mathewson).

Only allowing one run in two games is very good for Pennsylvania, since the tie-breaker after head-to-head is runs allowed. The Dominican Republic won our Statis-Pro World Baseball Classic a few years ago using current players, but in this all-time game the ability of some of the state teams to use starts from more than 100 years ago has left them not as deep on pitching.

Since we just updated fielding, we put each player clutch defense rating in the box score.  CD-5 is gold glove level, down to CD-1.

 

Dominican Rep. Line-up	Pos	Defense	AB	r	h	rbi
Fernando Tatis Jr.	ss	CD-1	8	0	0	0
Jose Ramirez	3b	CD-3	7	0	0	0
Vladimir Guerrero	lf	CD-3	8	0	2	0
Rafael Furcal	pr2	CD-3	0	0	0	0
Manny Ramirez	rf	CD-1	7	1	1	0	2b, robbed of GW 2b
Sammy Sosa	cf	CD-3	6	0	1	0
Ramon Martinez	p1	CD-2	0	0	0	0
Felipe Alou	ph1	CD-3	1	0	1	1	2b
David Ortiz	1b	CD-3	3	0	0	0
Cesar Cedeno	pr1	CD-5 Gold	0	0	0	0	2 steals
Albert Pujols	1b1	CD-5 Gold	2	0	0	0
Robinson Canó	2b	CD-5 Gold	5	0	1	0
Cesar Cedeno	pr2	CD-5 Gold	0	0	0	0
Placido Polanco	2b2	CD-5 Gold	1	0	0	0	Glove saved hit
Tony Pena	2-C	CD-5 Gold	6	0	0	0
Pedro Martinez	p1	CD-1	2	0	0	0
Juan Soto	ph1	CD-5	1	0	0	0
Juan Marichal	p2	CD-3	2	0	1	0
Albert Pujols	1b2	CD-5 Gold	1	0	0	0
DR bats .117			60	1	7	1
Dominican Republic Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	W	K	Notes
Pedro Martinez	6.1	4	2	2	1	10	Loss
Ramon Martinez	1.2	1	0	0	0	1
Octavio Dotel	1	1	0	0	0	2
Juan Marichal	7	5	2	2	1	2	Loss
Francisco Cordero	1	1	0	0	1	1
Armando Benitez	1	1	0	0	0	2

 

Pennsylvania Line-up	Pos	Cht	ab	r	h	bi	notes
Honus Wagner	ss	CD-1	8	2	3	0	2b,3b
Ken Griffey Jr.	cf	CD-5 Gold	8	0	2	2	2b, Game saving catch
Stan Musial	1b	CD-3	8	0	2	0
Reggie Jackson	rf	CD-3	6	0	0	0
Sherry Magee	rf1	CD-3	0	0	0	0	sb
Buddy Bell	3b	CD-5 Gold	8	1	1	1	HR
Hack Wilson	lf	CD-2	8	0	1	0
Roy Campanella	c	CD-4	4	0	3	0	3b
Sherry Magee	pr1	CD-3	0	1	0	0
Mike Piazza	c2	CD-3	2	0	0	0
Nellie Fox	2b	CD-5 Gold	4	0	0	0
Ed Walsh	p1	CD-3	2	0	0	0
Mike Piazza	ph1	CD-3	1	0	0	0
Christy Mathewson	p2	CD-3	1	0	0	1	RBI Sac Fly
Dick Allen	ph2	CD-3	1	0	0	0
PA Batted .197			61	4	12	4
Pennsylvania Pitching	IP	h	r	er	w	k	Notes
Ed Walsh	7	2	0	0	2	5	Won
Bruce Sutter	1	0	0	0	0	0	Hold
Sparky Lyle	1	2	1	1	0	2	Save
Christy Mathewson	8	3	0	0	0	5	Won
Herb Pennock	1	1	0	0	0	0	Save

Note, the modern players have cards, but for the all-time players the info that would be on a card is on sheets for each team.  The sheets only include the last number of each range. On the sheets the range does not specify to which fielder the ball was hit. If the second digit of the random number is a "1" or "2" (11,12,21,22,31 etc) the ball was pulled, so left field for a RN or RP, center field for an SN or SP and right field for a LN or LP. The one exception is an 11 is an infield single if the batter is an OBR A or B.

Ending in 3 or 4 is to left field

Ending in 5 or 6 is the center field

Ending in 7 or 8 is tk right field

Click for the free Statis-Pro Master Baseball Game. Click here for 60 of the all-time great MLB teams, or on teams of manyof the all-time great players on teams by nation or state with one sheet for each team. Or click on the 2023 pitchers and 2023 batters in card form. You simply print two teams cards and then either print theaster link above and fast action cards in master link or buy the dice to start playing.