The twit announcer on SportsCenter describing the Braves highlights just said that Chipper passed Hank Aaron on the Braves’ all-time RBI list. That would be quite a feat, since Hank holds the all-time RBI record and played all but two of his seasons for the Braves. (His Braves total alone is only 11 fewer than Babe Ruth’s old record.) I would guess the twit means the Atlanta RBI list.
Off topic, so I didn’t know where else to put this, but Baseball America’s reporting that a 22 year old Rome Brave, Jose Capellan hit 100 on the radar gun. The URL is:
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/minors/dishjuly03.html
if you’re interested in reading about it. Don’t know if he’s much of a prospect, but that’s pretty cool.
I didn’t see the ESPN piece, but even for Atlanta only, Chipper isn’t 1st. If my math is any good, he now has 898. Aaron had 897. But I learned some years ago that 1,143 is more than 897 – the former figure was Dale Murphy’s Atlanta total.
The piece said he passed Aaron for second.
Yeah, I never thought it made sense to break up franchise records by city; I mean, it’s still the same franchise, right? Now if the team changes its name after the move, a la the Orioles (former Browns) or Twins (former Senators) then all bets are off.
Making a big deal about someone holding the “Atlanta record” for RBI is just further proof that most media types don’t know a junk stat from a useful one. Giving Chipper credit for a team record just because the Braves didn’t move to a new city in the middle of his career is just like giving Jim Thome credit for having the most postseason home runs; nevermind the fact that the playoffs are three times as long as they were when Mantle and Ruth were playing.
The game that Cappelan hit 100 was broadcasted on Comcast’s sports channel. I didn’t get to see much of it, but he did look impressive. Of course, so do about five other guys at Rome.
My understanding is that Capellan has a bit of the Wild Thing in him, that he throws hard but doesn’t know where it’s going. Well, that’s what the minors are for.
Yeah, after his RBI single in the game against the Cubs Tuesday night, the big scoreboard screen at Turner Field said that he tied Hank Aaron for second on either the Braves or Atlanta’s career RBI list. I thought that sounded like BS because he has 755 HRs, so automatically there’s 755 RBIs. Something didn’t add up…
I don’t tend to get excited about a guy hitting 100 on the radar gun once. That’s just the kind of toolsy BS you would expect to read in Baseball America.
And it’s not like 22 is excessively young to be throwing that hard. Now, if he’s doing it consistently, that’s another story. Anyway, those gun readings are often jacked up a few mph to get the fans excited.