?The latest tranche of greats found in #MLBRank includes a trio of the all-time greatest second basemen ever: Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan and Jackie Robinson. Yeezy 350 v2 Noir Et Blanc . It might be a slight surprise for some of you to see Jackie in that company, but lets get into the legacies of each in what makes for a tough ranking between the three of them.Rogers Hornsbys case can effectively be boiled down to the 10-year stretch of extraordinary performance he put up at the outset of the live ball era starting in 1920. Through 1929, Hornsby hit .382/.460/.637 with 770 extra-base hits while winning seven batting titles. If you like WAR, hes No. 1 there as well. Its a case for all-time dominance that rests on the unquestioning assumption that what you see on the page is all you need to know, because very few of us alive today saw him play in his prime.And while the same factors are in play with Hornsby that are also the case with Lou Gehrig or Honus Wagner -- playing in small, unintegrated leagues with poor competitive balance -- on their face the numbers are unimpeachable. If you want a case built on reading a stat line and going no further, Hornsby is your guy, even if it means skipping over a few criticisms of his indifferent defense or a personality that contributed to teams readiness to ditch him in the back half of his career, at a time when free agency didnt exist.But if you like numbers, Rogers Hornsby provides. Hes the statistical choice.Joe Morgans case is a variation on that theme. Hes the greatest second baseman in the history of the game since the game was fully integrated. He ranks fourth all-time in WAR among second basemen behind Hornsby, Nap Lajoie and Eddie Collins, fourth behind them in peak WAR, fourth behind them in Jay Jaffes JAWS metric blending peak and career value.Hes second all time among second basemen in stolen bases and first in walks. Evaluations of his defense rate him among the greats. In The Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James referred to him as the best percentage player in baseball history, citing his defense, base stealing and walk rate, while ranking him the best second baseman in the games history. With Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Pete Rose, he was a part of the offensive quartet that made the Big Red Machine one of the greatest teams of all time, winning back-to-back MVP awards in 1975-1976. Hes the analytical choice, and all other things aside, hed be my guy, but for one thing.Second base is where Jackie Robinson played most of the time. Take a step back from the numbers, because this isnt that kind of argument. It cant be, because Robinson played just 10 years, far too few to rack up the counting stats that might flesh out a career in this kind of conversation.As fans, we ask of athletes what they ask of themselves: Greatness, at its simplest. To rise to every challenge their sport presents them with. To be excellent. And in the broadest of broad strokes, how many baseball players faced the challenge Jackie did, breaking baseballs color line? Who could conceivably have done it better? I know Ive upset some of you with my disinclination to hallow the great numerical accumulators of the games pre-integration era, but in part thats because, of all the things ever done on a diamond with a stick and a ball, there is no one thing greater than what Jackie Robinson did, for the game or for history.Jackie doesnt have the numbers. He was asked to do something more important, and he delivered. Its why he belongs in a conversation about who the greatest American athlete of the 20th century might be, in the company of Ali, Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee or Jesse Owens. Its a conversation that doesnt include Hornsby or Morgan, not to slight them in the least.If you want to tell the story of baseball, you can tell it without mentioning a great many of the great players weve talked about in #MLBRank. But you cannot tell that story without Jackie Robinson. And if you were going to reduce the game to one team, one starting nine, the people who should be the imperishable example on some field of dreams, one of those nine men has to be Jackie Robinson.At this level of greatness within the game, there are no wrong answers. But in this trio, Jackie Robinson is consciences choice, and its the credit of the game that it gave him to us, not the other way around. Yeezy 350 v2 Noir Et Rouge . Kuznetsov, who was selected by the Capitals in the first round of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, has been playing for his hometown team Chelyabinsk Traktor of the KHL. Off White Yeezy 350 V2 Pas Cher .500 on the season. The Jets are now 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. The game started the same way the Vancouver game started the night before, with the Jets taking the first two penalties of the game and killing off the first, but the Oilers getting on the board first, scoring on the second man-advantage. http://www.pascheryeezy350v2.fr/ . The head of USA Boxing came out swinging Tuesday with an open letter to Tyson -- a former Olympic hopeful himself -- that accuses the former heavyweight champion of trying to poach fighters who might be candidates for the U. CINCINNATI -- Joey Vottos hitting has finally come around midway through the season, just like it did last year.Votto, Zack Cozart and Eugenio Suarez all homered in the fourth inning as the Cincinnati Reds got the better of a matchup between the NLs two worst teams, beating the Atlanta Braves 8-2 on Monday night.The Reds (35-58) have taken three of five this season against the Braves, who have the majors worst record (32-61). Atlanta is 19-31 all-time at Great American Ball Park, including five losses in its last six games.The Reds connected three times off Matt Wisler (4-9), who has given up five homers in his last two starts. Cozart led off the fourth with his 15th homer, and Votto extended his second-half resurgence with a two-run shot. In four games since returning from the All-Star break, Votto is 8 for 15.Early in the season, I was struggling hitting fastballs over the plate, said Votto, who was batting .213 at the end of May. Thats something I needed to correct. You cant play in this league without being able to hit fastballs. That was step one, and you go from there.Suarezs two-run homer just inside the left-field foul pole made it 5-1. Votto later added an RBI single.The former NL Most Valuable Player also had a subpar first half last season, then led the majors by batting .362 after the All-Star break. So far this July, hes batting .351.Ive got a great feeling, Reds manager Bryan Price said. Hes able to play without the frustration that goes with those early struggles. Thats a relief for me to see him go out there just playing baseball. He looks very much like the player who enjoyed a ridiculous second half last year.Left-hander Brandon Finnegan (5-7) pitched into the sixth and gave up seven hits -- three of them by Adonis Garcia, who hit a solo homer in the sixth. Finnegan had lost three of his last four starts, giving up 20 runs in 19 innings.Wisler won his last start, 11-8 over the White Sox in Chicago on July 8 despite giving up six runs, including two homers. Since the start of June, hes 2-4 in eight starts with a 7.06 ERA.The ball started getting up, Wisler said. Yeezy 350 v2 Lundmark Pas Cher. Once the ball started getting up, they started teeing it up on me. I cant keep having outings like this. Its frustrating.Billy Hamilton singled three times, scored a run and stole three bases for a total of 27, the third-most in the NL.THATS FASTMauricio Cabrera threw a pitch at 103.8 mph, according to MLBs Statcast system. Its the ninth-fastest pitch since Statcast began tracking last year. The eight higher ones were thrown by Aroldis Chapman, including a 105.1 mph one Monday night.STATSWisler also gave up three homers in an inning on June 11 against the Cubs. ... It was the third time this season that the Reds hit three homers in an inning. They also did it April 23 against the Cubs and May 4 against the Giants. ... Garcia has hit safely in all five games against the Reds this season, going 11 for 22 with two homers. ... Cozarts 15 homers match his career high. He most recently hit 15 in 2012. Twelve of his 15 have been solo shots.MESORACO SURGERYReds C Devin Mesoraco had surgery on his right hip Monday, his third major operation in a year. He had surgery on the left hip last season and was back for opening day. He had surgery for a torn labrum in his left shoulder in May. The right hip started bothering him early this season, and doctors advised that it would require surgery at some point as well.TRAINERS ROOMBraves: RH Shae Simmons threw a simulated game on Monday. Hes recovering from Tommy John surgery in February 2015.Reds: 2B Brandon Phillips was back in the lineup after missing two games with a strained right calf. He went 1 for 3 -- extending his hitting streak to seven games -- and left for a pinch hitter in the seventh.UP NEXTBraves: RHP Tyrell Jenkins (0-1, 4.50) makes his second career start and sixth major league appearance.Reds: LHP Cody Reed (0-4, 8.39) makes his sixth career start. He has failed to last five innings in his last three starts.---Follow Joe Kay on Twitter: http://twitter.com/apjoekay ' ' '
?The latest tranche of greats found in #MLBRank includes a trio of the all-time greatest second basemen ever: Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan and Jackie Robinson. Yeezy 350 v2 Noir Et Blanc . It might be a slight surprise for some of you to see Jackie in that company, but lets get into the legacies of each in what makes for a tough ranking between the three of them.Rogers Hornsbys case can effectively be boiled down to the 10-year stretch of extraordinary performance he put up at the outset of the live ball era starting in 1920. Through 1929, Hornsby hit .382/.460/.637 with 770 extra-base hits while winning seven batting titles. If you like WAR, hes No. 1 there as well. Its a case for all-time dominance that rests on the unquestioning assumption that what you see on the page is all you need to know, because very few of us alive today saw him play in his prime.And while the same factors are in play with Hornsby that are also the case with Lou Gehrig or Honus Wagner -- playing in small, unintegrated leagues with poor competitive balance -- on their face the numbers are unimpeachable. If you want a case built on reading a stat line and going no further, Hornsby is your guy, even if it means skipping over a few criticisms of his indifferent defense or a personality that contributed to teams readiness to ditch him in the back half of his career, at a time when free agency didnt exist.But if you like numbers, Rogers Hornsby provides. Hes the statistical choice.Joe Morgans case is a variation on that theme. Hes the greatest second baseman in the history of the game since the game was fully integrated. He ranks fourth all-time in WAR among second basemen behind Hornsby, Nap Lajoie and Eddie Collins, fourth behind them in peak WAR, fourth behind them in Jay Jaffes JAWS metric blending peak and career value.Hes second all time among second basemen in stolen bases and first in walks. Evaluations of his defense rate him among the greats. In The Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James referred to him as the best percentage player in baseball history, citing his defense, base stealing and walk rate, while ranking him the best second baseman in the games history. With Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Pete Rose, he was a part of the offensive quartet that made the Big Red Machine one of the greatest teams of all time, winning back-to-back MVP awards in 1975-1976. Hes the analytical choice, and all other things aside, hed be my guy, but for one thing.Second base is where Jackie Robinson played most of the time. Take a step back from the numbers, because this isnt that kind of argument. It cant be, because Robinson played just 10 years, far too few to rack up the counting stats that might flesh out a career in this kind of conversation.As fans, we ask of athletes what they ask of themselves: Greatness, at its simplest. To rise to every challenge their sport presents them with. To be excellent. And in the broadest of broad strokes, how many baseball players faced the challenge Jackie did, breaking baseballs color line? Who could conceivably have done it better? I know Ive upset some of you with my disinclination to hallow the great numerical accumulators of the games pre-integration era, but in part thats because, of all the things ever done on a diamond with a stick and a ball, there is no one thing greater than what Jackie Robinson did, for the game or for history.Jackie doesnt have the numbers. He was asked to do something more important, and he delivered. Its why he belongs in a conversation about who the greatest American athlete of the 20th century might be, in the company of Ali, Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee or Jesse Owens. Its a conversation that doesnt include Hornsby or Morgan, not to slight them in the least.If you want to tell the story of baseball, you can tell it without mentioning a great many of the great players weve talked about in #MLBRank. But you cannot tell that story without Jackie Robinson. And if you were going to reduce the game to one team, one starting nine, the people who should be the imperishable example on some field of dreams, one of those nine men has to be Jackie Robinson.At this level of greatness within the game, there are no wrong answers. But in this trio, Jackie Robinson is consciences choice, and its the credit of the game that it gave him to us, not the other way around. Yeezy 350 v2 Noir Et Rouge . Kuznetsov, who was selected by the Capitals in the first round of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, has been playing for his hometown team Chelyabinsk Traktor of the KHL. Off White Yeezy 350 V2 Pas Cher .500 on the season. The Jets are now 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. The game started the same way the Vancouver game started the night before, with the Jets taking the first two penalties of the game and killing off the first, but the Oilers getting on the board first, scoring on the second man-advantage. http://www.pascheryeezy350v2.fr/ . The head of USA Boxing came out swinging Tuesday with an open letter to Tyson -- a former Olympic hopeful himself -- that accuses the former heavyweight champion of trying to poach fighters who might be candidates for the U. CINCINNATI -- Joey Vottos hitting has finally come around midway through the season, just like it did last year.Votto, Zack Cozart and Eugenio Suarez all homered in the fourth inning as the Cincinnati Reds got the better of a matchup between the NLs two worst teams, beating the Atlanta Braves 8-2 on Monday night.The Reds (35-58) have taken three of five this season against the Braves, who have the majors worst record (32-61). Atlanta is 19-31 all-time at Great American Ball Park, including five losses in its last six games.The Reds connected three times off Matt Wisler (4-9), who has given up five homers in his last two starts. Cozart led off the fourth with his 15th homer, and Votto extended his second-half resurgence with a two-run shot. In four games since returning from the All-Star break, Votto is 8 for 15.Early in the season, I was struggling hitting fastballs over the plate, said Votto, who was batting .213 at the end of May. Thats something I needed to correct. You cant play in this league without being able to hit fastballs. That was step one, and you go from there.Suarezs two-run homer just inside the left-field foul pole made it 5-1. Votto later added an RBI single.The former NL Most Valuable Player also had a subpar first half last season, then led the majors by batting .362 after the All-Star break. So far this July, hes batting .351.Ive got a great feeling, Reds manager Bryan Price said. Hes able to play without the frustration that goes with those early struggles. Thats a relief for me to see him go out there just playing baseball. He looks very much like the player who enjoyed a ridiculous second half last year.Left-hander Brandon Finnegan (5-7) pitched into the sixth and gave up seven hits -- three of them by Adonis Garcia, who hit a solo homer in the sixth. Finnegan had lost three of his last four starts, giving up 20 runs in 19 innings.Wisler won his last start, 11-8 over the White Sox in Chicago on July 8 despite giving up six runs, including two homers. Since the start of June, hes 2-4 in eight starts with a 7.06 ERA.The ball started getting up, Wisler said. Yeezy 350 v2 Lundmark Pas Cher. Once the ball started getting up, they started teeing it up on me. I cant keep having outings like this. Its frustrating.Billy Hamilton singled three times, scored a run and stole three bases for a total of 27, the third-most in the NL.THATS FASTMauricio Cabrera threw a pitch at 103.8 mph, according to MLBs Statcast system. Its the ninth-fastest pitch since Statcast began tracking last year. The eight higher ones were thrown by Aroldis Chapman, including a 105.1 mph one Monday night.STATSWisler also gave up three homers in an inning on June 11 against the Cubs. ... It was the third time this season that the Reds hit three homers in an inning. They also did it April 23 against the Cubs and May 4 against the Giants. ... Garcia has hit safely in all five games against the Reds this season, going 11 for 22 with two homers. ... Cozarts 15 homers match his career high. He most recently hit 15 in 2012. Twelve of his 15 have been solo shots.MESORACO SURGERYReds C Devin Mesoraco had surgery on his right hip Monday, his third major operation in a year. He had surgery on the left hip last season and was back for opening day. He had surgery for a torn labrum in his left shoulder in May. The right hip started bothering him early this season, and doctors advised that it would require surgery at some point as well.TRAINERS ROOMBraves: RH Shae Simmons threw a simulated game on Monday. Hes recovering from Tommy John surgery in February 2015.Reds: 2B Brandon Phillips was back in the lineup after missing two games with a strained right calf. He went 1 for 3 -- extending his hitting streak to seven games -- and left for a pinch hitter in the seventh.UP NEXTBraves: RHP Tyrell Jenkins (0-1, 4.50) makes his second career start and sixth major league appearance.Reds: LHP Cody Reed (0-4, 8.39) makes his sixth career start. He has failed to last five innings in his last three starts.---Follow Joe Kay on Twitter: http://twitter.com/apjoekay ' ' '
