Brad Penny hit a grand slam in the Cardinals game yesterday, which is pretty awesome. But since we'll be talking about him below, I thought we'd go with Carlos Gomez's three-run shot and ridiculous strut in a 15-0 game as the Home Run of the Day. Seriously, watch the video. He crushes that ball to left-field, drops the bat with a flourish, and takes about three steps with an "I just killed you"-attitude that is completely idiotic when your team is down 15 runs.

Thankfully, Gomez seemed to realize the amateur nature of his trot after the game, saying "If they’re going to do something tomorrow, I’m going to take it like a man because I know I did bad."

One of the reasons I started the Tater Trot Tracker, besides just having a little fun, was to get a feel for what a true showboating home run is like. We all feel like they happen all the time (like everytime Alex Rodriguez or David Ortiz hits one, for example), but that's not exactly true. One certainly happened last night in Minnesota, though.

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On Sunday night, as the Brewers were on their way to completing an 0-6 homestand against the Braves and Phillies, troubled Milwaukee closer Trevor Hoffman - he of the 596 career saves and the best entrance music in baseball - walked to the mound to get ready for the ninth inning. So what was playing on the Miller Park speakers?

"Dancing Queen", by Abba.

Granted, it wasn't a save situation (the Phillies were ahead 4-2) and it was the final night of the retro-1970s weekend, so the PA system had been blaring 1970s music between innings all game. Still, it certainly felt weird to see #51 walk in from the left-field bullpen to the exuberant disco track rather than the booming bells of AC/DC's iconic hit. As Miller Park Drunk pointed out, it was almost like the Brewers were punishing him for his poor start to the season.

And Hoffman's start to the season is definitely worthy of punishment. Counting Tuesday's game, where he was called in to protect a two-run lead in Cincinnati and proceeded to give up three runs to the next five batters (without recording an out), Hoffman has blown five saves in ten chances and given up seven home runs and 19 earned runs in only 13 innings. Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported today that the Brewers would not pitch Hoffman for a few days while they worked on his mechanics. Whether he would return to active duty as the closer or not was left unsaid.

I have to say, I'm just as upset and disheartened about Hoffman's performance this year as pretty much all Brewers fans. When I see him get called in to the game in the ninth inning, I can't even will myself to think optimistically, and I absolutely believe that Ken Macha and Doug Melvin need to shuffle the bullpen around and let Carlos Villanueva close out a few games.

But I'm not one to traffic in negativism - it's lazy and less-than-productive - so instead I thought I'd look at something a little more positive: when did "Hell's Bells" become synonymous with Trevor Hoffman?

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Had a good time over the weekend (highlighted by a trip to the Brewers game with Miller Park Drunk and a visit from Big League Stew's Answer Dave), but it didn't leave a lot of time for blogging.

To make up for it, I give you this awesome video that I found over on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's website. You may have seen this really great picture of the new Brewers plane from AirTran. Well, here's a short video showing how the plane got that look. A pretty cool way to spend sixty-eight seconds. Enjoy.

The Actual Making of Brewers 1 from AirTran Airways on Vimeo.

There's been a lot of talk this week about Ken Griffey, Jr., and the potential (sad) end to his career. Considering the way the club has circled the wagons since the "he couldn't pinch-hit because he was asleep" story broke, his possible retirement or release might not be as eminent as was originally thought - though you never know with these things. Whatever the case, I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit this post - Sometimes the End is Unexpected - I wrote last summer as Tom Glavine was unceremoniously dumped from the game. It turns out Glavine and Griffey aren't the only sure Hall of Famers with less-than-glamorous ends to their careers. Who knew?

Since 1979, when Willie Mays was elected into the Hall of Fame (with 94.7% of the vote), there have been 31 Hall of Famers selected on their first ballot. Many of these players were able to retire under their own terms, but not all of them. Like Tom Glavine this week, or even Sammy Sosa two years ago, more than a few recent first-ballot Hall of Famers played their last game with no idea that it would be their final appearance in a Major League Game.

With the uncertainty left in Tom Glavine's career - and with Sammy Sosa's "retirement" speech earlier this week giving us yet another reminder of how sudden the end can come - I thought it might be interesting to look at how other Hall of Famers ended their careers.

Joe Morgan

On September 30, 1984, Joe Morgan ended his career as an Oakland Athletic, his fourth team in five years, when he was lifted for a pinch-runner after doubling in the 1st inning. From the AP report the next day:

"Baseball veteran Joe Morgan ended his career without fanfare, or even a farewell, as he slipped out of the ballpark while the A's closed their season with an 8-2 win over Kansas City.

After a first-inning double Sunday, he left the field to a standing ovation from 23,028 fans. His action spoke louder than words, because Morgan made no statement following the game."

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There's been a lot of talk these past few weeks about the seemingly high number of pitchers taking no-hitters into the late innings. A quick perusal of Google News gives me seven pitchers (Shawn Marcum, Ricky Romero, CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, Doug Fister, Scott Olsen, and Jered Weaver) who brought a no-hitter into the seventh inning or later already this year. Combine those seven with the no-no/perfecto combo of Ubaldo Jimenez and Dallas Braden and it just feels like we've had an abnormally high amount of these late-inning no-hit situations. It doesn't help when the press gushes every time someone - like Ted Lilly tonight, for example - takes a no-hitter into the fifth or sixth innings. But we all know that just because something "feels" one way doesn't make it so.

Remember last year when I went through the Retrosheet database to find which pitchers had the most late-inning no-hitters? Randy Johnson and Sandy Koufax had the second- and third-most games where they took a no-hitter into the seventh inning or later with 13 and 10, respectively, while Nolan Ryan was the far and away leader with 31 total games. It was a post that people seemed to find interesting.

Using that same data, I went back and calculated the number of late-inning, near-no-hitters by year. I also calculated how many late-inning, near-no-nos had occurred in each season by May 10 so that we could compare them to the year in progress. The numbers show that, yes, we're seeing a few more near no-hitters this year, but it's not exactly a record-breaking total.

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"It's like there's a party in my mouth and everybody's invited." - Ken Griffey, Jr.

(Oh boy, did this get longer than I expected... But you expect nothing less of me, right?)

Those of us who are old enough to remember just how exciting it was to open a pack of of the brand new Upper Deck baseball cards ("one dollar for a pack of cards?! that's obscene!") with the hope that the smiling face of Ken Griffey, Jr., would greet you, or who vividly remember the night a new primetime cartoon premiered starring a family of weird yellow people whose Christmas was saved when the losing greyhound at the track on Christmas Eve joined their family may not want to admit it, but 1989 was 21 years ago now. Any baby born the day Kid Griffey took his first cuts as a major leaguer can now buy beer whenever he wants. That's just too much.

Seeing as how two such legendary - though clearly long-in-the-tooth - institutions were born in the same year, I thought it might be fun to compare how their careers have played out these last 20+ years. Considering how they both hit such ridiculously high peaks in the 1990s before succumbing to age and injury in the 2000s, the comparison may be more apt than you realize...

1989

Some might say that, since The Simpsons began in December 1989, it's first year was 1990. Television seasons start in the fall, though, so it makes more sense to me to line-up the 1989-90 television season with the 1989 baseball season, and the 1990-91 television season with the 1990 baseball season, and so forth... Besides, it gives us some wonderful synchronicity to play with.

Both Griffey and The Simpsons got off to solid, if unpolished, starts. Griffey batted .264/.329/.420 (108 OPS+) in 127 games that year and finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting to Baltimore's rookie closer, Gregg Olson.

Of course, the Kid had a lot of hype to live up to that year - The Simpsons, not so much. As a new animated series coming to the still young Fox Network, and being based off the cartoon shorts from The Tracey Ullman Show, it wasn't exactly network television's top prospect. But with episodes like "Bart the General", "The Telltale Head", and "Krusty Gets Busted", we could certainly see the talent that would make it one of the greatest shows ever.

1990

There was no sophomore slump in either Seattle or Springfield. In fact, both Griffey and The Simpsons improved a great deal from their already solid first seasons. Griffey increased his slash line to .300/.366/.481 (135 OPS+) in 155 games, and upped his home run total from 16 to 22.

In it's first full season, The Simpsons brought us such classics as "Bart the Daredevil", "Bart Gets Hit by a Car", "Dancin' Homer", and "Two Cars in Every Garage..." (and I could list another five episodes here and still leave off some of your favorites). And, yet, there were still even better episodes to come.

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Sad news in the baseball world this evening, as 92-year-old Ernie Harwell, the long time voice of the Detroit Tigers before retiring in 2002, passed away. It was by no means unexpected - he announced his battle with terminal cancer last fall - but it is still plenty sad. I don't have the personal connection to Harwell as others do, so I'll leave that kind of remembrance to them (Craig Calcaterra's take is great).

Harwell was an absolute legend. When I created that chart of the great radio broadcasters of the past 60+ years last week (boy, there's been a lot of mortality talk recently), there were three names that I knew, without even thinking, would go on it besides Uecker's (he inspired the chart, after all): Vin Scully, Jack Buck, and Ernie Harwell. When you're talking about baseball broadcasters, you're talking about Ernie Harwell.

From 1960 until his retirement at the age of 84, Harwell was the voice of the Tigers. But that wasn't his first gig. He actually began his big league career as a fill-in for the Brooklyn Dodgers' Red Barber in 1948. He remained with the club in '49, but moved over to the crosstown Giants in 1950. In 1954, when the Browns moved from St. Louis to Baltimore, he joined the club. How long ago was that?

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Those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook already saw this once or twice today, but I figure it's worth mentioning again here on the blog. The news may be a little late in the day now, but that's okay: the Tater Trot Tracker is featured in today's issue of the USA Today!

The short article can be found on Page 3.0 of the Sports section under the "Web Watch" heading. It's called "Putting a clock on those home run trots", and it features real, honest-to-goodness quotes from me. Pretty cool. There's also a full interview with me located on the USA Today Game On! blog.

If you're interested in reading the article in some way other than the photo above, you can click on over to the USA Today site and read it there. Hope you enjoy it.

One month down, five more to go.

Now that April is officially in the books, I thought it'd be a good time to go back and look at the month in home run trots. I started this series because I thought it'd be a fun way to watch the season. It hasn't disappointed yet. Watching every home run, and seeing how every player runs out their home runs, has given me a new way to enjoy the game. Is he running hard out of the box? Does he throttle it down halfway between first and second when he sees the ball clear the fence? Or does he put his head down and run hard for all 360 feet?

As for the blog, I've tried not to let the daily Tater Trot Tracker posts keep me from doing my regular blog posts. I don't think I've completely succeeded in that regard - some of the backend stuff has bled over into my nights and kept me from doing other things. But all of that is basically done with now, so I should be better able to keep to my daily routine. Anyhow, I hope the recent focus on the Tater Trot Tracker hasn't bothered too many people.

Let's get to the data. All stats below are as of home runs hit on April 30. If a home run trot was deemed unmeasurable (like Josh Willingham's reviewed grand slam or Paul Konerko's pause at first base while the umpires decide if the ball was over the fence or not), it was not included in any of the calculations. I think there's some interesting stuff in there.

This spreadsheet provides full player and team stats.

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I was alerted to this post written by BoSoxBob of AthleteXchange.com from fellow Bloguinite CollegeWolf (of TWolves Blog fame). I thought it was hilarious and needed to be posted for all to see, so I volunteered to put it up here at Wezen-Ball.

It's a thorough and scientific look (obviously commissioned by Dayton Moore) at what has gone wrong with Gil Meche and the rest of the Royals pitching staff over the last few years. You'll never guess what his findings were...

(Click "Read More" to read the post from BoSoxBob.)