My other tumblr circle doesn't like sports.

- Soto says he will not go to the Angels because they have no fans and all smoke non addictive substances.

- He's not going to the Red Sox because his brother goes to school in Boston and it would be awkward.

Hmm...I wonder why this person, luckily not snapping the wrist of one of the top 5 players in the MLB, was given hugs and high 5s on the way out of the park for obvious and intentional fan interference.

Is it a "bad apple"? I'd say the reception around the guy (outside of one stunned Yankees fan in frame) is pretty good evidence that's not true. Is it just a sports fan thing? Obviously it's not like Yankees fans are a monolith of evil hearts or something. I don't really recall seeing this sort of reaction before, and more importantly, as intentional and aggressive a fan interference before.

No, this is a result of the New York Yankees organization themselves. They fostered this environment very aggressive and obvious cheating.

Jeffrey Maier helped steal a possible playoff win from the Baltimore Orioles in 1996 in favor of the Yankees. This famous missed call by a right field ump, failing their one nightly call, resulted in one of the most infamous examples of the MLB refusing to implement replay under commissioner Bud Selig.

That in and of itself does not show a problem with Yankees fans. Every team has had fan interference and this was a child. It was just at a huge moment. The difference was the response: Maier was made a hero. He was offered tickets to have dugout seats at the world series, he was interviewed on New York and national TV stations, and was a folk hero for inadvertently cheating the Yankees towards an important playoff win.

It would have been easy for the Yankees organization to walk the line of not humiliating a child but also sending a clear message to fans that doing this is not fun or heroic. That this should not happen again.

Instead, they did not do that. And with this incident with Mookie, so much worse that it is, has resulted in a 2 game ban for these people. The "zero tolerance" policy the Yankees were talking up is for a game that for all intents and purposes, does not matter. The Yankees are not winning this series against a vastly better built LA Dodgers team.

The message is a slap on the wrist. Which is, granted, more than nothing as with Maier. It's amazing what 30 years in both age and calendar year does to a punishment. After inflation, the Yankees fans know the punishment: 2 days away from Yankees Stadium and hugs from your peers. What a price.

Playing for multiple Negro League teams, he was known as part of the famous "Million Dollar Infield" in his time with the Newark Eagles. The infield included fellow legend Mule Suttles, as well as stars Ray Dandridge and Dick Seay.

As was common for non-white players pre-integration, Wells played in Mexico and enjoyed his time in the first years of the 1940s there. Compared to the brutal segregation and racist groups throughout America, Wells enjoyed the acceptance and freedom he found in Mexico. For the rest of his playing career he spent time in Mexico, US, and Canada until 1950.

Wells, besides being one of the biggest stars of black baseball, was also the first professional player to wear a being helmet while batting, something that would not be required until decades later.

Ewing was an excellent catcher when it came to keeping base runners in check, and he himself stole over 350 bases, which as a catcher, would rank 1st, but he played every other position so often as well that he does not officially qualify.

Buck's time with the Gothams is speculated to have ended because of his leaving the National League for the new Players League in 1890 (which was a short lived League following in the footsteps of the 1884 Union Association which looked to abolish the reserve clause.) Because Ewing left for the New York team in the Players League and the league failed, Ewing was only let back on the Gothams (now renamed to the Giants) for a single year before being moved.

After a few more years with the Cleveland Spiders and Cincinnati Reds, Ewing retired as a player and continued the next few years as a manager.

Few catchers of the time could come close to Ewing's all around ability. Other contemporaries like King Kelly played other positions more commonly than catcher, and his closest peer in the conversation, Roger Bresnahan, only began playing in 1897, and was a star in the early 20th century.

Sometimes players who are good regress or have their peak seasons early in their career. When it happens in America this is generally accepted as obvious. When someone from Japan or the KBO is signed for "big" money it shows they were unproven and couldn't handle the mighty American leagues.

But Barnes, despite being the most dominant player in the NA, is not in the hall of fame for a few reasons. One, his career was severely shortened by a nameless illness that made him only able to compete about 180 games for the last 5 years of his career (1877 to 1881). Even when he was able to play, he did not do so well.

Second, the short seasons of the NA resulted in his career counting stats being underwhelming to the rest of the players in the hall of fame. In his peak, Barnes could only play in about 45 to 80 games a year. His 27.7 bWAR is lower than players like Marquis Grissom, Martin Prado, and Terry Puhl. He accumulated under 900 career hits and under 1200 total bases (he had fewer total bases than Mark Reynolds if you only count his home runs, nevermind the rest of his hits). However, his rate stats are among the best of all time. Barnes has the highest runs scores per game (almost 2 per game), had a .360 career average (which would be 2nd all time if he qualified), and his WAR is actually very high if adjusted to 162 game seasons. In the National Association and his first year in the national league, if adjusted to 162 games each year, these are his seasonal bWAR totals: 11, 15.5, 13.2, 7.6, 10.8 and 14.7. Of course, there are several asterisks here, including that Barnes doesn't seem like he was particularly durable at any point in his career and so would be unlikely to play 162 games in a season, the fact that this may be more a failure of the calculation of WAR trying to evenly compare players among all eras with one stat (this is also glaring with 19th century pitchers having seasons approaching 20 WAR a season with 40 fewer games a season) among other issues.

Lastly, Barnes did not play 10 career years, the number needed to have consideration to be inducted into the hall of fame.

While in the 1860s the run scoring in games was out of control, due to the horrible defense and catchers standing 25 feet back of home plate (in order to not lose their hands), Allison figured out baserunners were not as keen to steal against him. Instead of teams scoring upwards of 60 runs a game, Allison became a catching specialist, heavily limiting runs for his pitcher Asa Brainard.