Wednesday's List of 13: Mid-week musings…….

Wednesday's List of 13: Mid-week musings…….

13) On July 2, 1963, Giants beat the Braves 1-0 in 16 innings at Candlestick Park. Willie Mays homered in the 16th inning. Time of game: 4:10. No pitching changes.

Both pitchers threw complete games that night; Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn. Spahn faced 56 batters, Marichal 59.

Took me a while, but I found the pitch counts for this game; Marichal threw 227 pitches, and the 42 year-old Spahn threw 201. One of the most interesting major league games of all time.

If that ever happened today, both managers/pitching coaches would be fired before sunrise.

12) I think when they put in the 3-batter minimum in for relief pitchers, it is going to shorten games by 10-15 minutes a game. Pitching changes during an inning add around five minutes apiece.

11) One of first things I learned about baseball is that a team must be strong defensively up the middle to win a championship; some of the analytics people who run front offices now disagree with this. Take the Mets.

Amed Roasrio plays shortstop, Michael Conforto plays center for the Mets most days now; Rosario is a lousy SS and his on-base %age is .293. Mets have Lagares/Gomez, who both play CF better than Conforto but Dom Smith is hitting .330, so he plays left and Conforto plays center.

Wonder what the Mets’ pitchers would do if they made out the lineup card?

10) Speaking of the Mets, they’re skipping Steven Matz’s start this weekend and will go into the All-Star break after Zach Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard make starts the weekend.

9) According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, there is currently “no market” for DeMarcus Cousins, the free agent center who played for Golden State last year.

In 30 regular season games with the Warriors after recovering from an achilles injury, Cousins averaged 16.3 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 3.6 apg, 1.5 bpg, and 1.3 spg in 25.7 mpg- he was hoping at least for a one-year, 8-figure contract, but that looks unlikely right now.

8) Former NFL QB Anthony Wright was shot multiple times in North Carolina Monday by his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend; Wright played for four NFL teams over the course of an eight-year career, starting 19 games- he went 5-2 starting for the 2003 Ravens.

7) Baseball stuff:
— Bronx put 1B Luke Voit (ab strain) on IL.
— 1B Kendrys Morales was released, is now a free agent.
— Cardinals put 3B Matt Carpenter (back) on the IL.

6) College basketball transfer portal:
— G Jaylen Fisher transfers from TCU to Grand Canyon.

5) Pretty good basketball trifecta at Barclays Center Dec 17:
Providence – Florida
Temple – Miami
Iona-Princeton

4) There was a hailstorm in western Mexico Sunday that covered parts of the region with as much as three feet of ice; hailstorms aren’t unusual for this time of year, but no one there had ever seen anything as extreme as this before.

3) Texas A&M has been in the SEC for seven years and still hasn’t played a football game against Georgia.

2) Red Sox will use Nathan Eovaldi as their closer when he comes off the IL.

1) One of my favorite hotel/casinos in Las Vegas turned 50 years old Tuesday; the Westgate, formerly the International and then the Las Vegas Hilton, opened on July 2, 1969.