Baseball Tournament Time

There is nothing that distracts TigerBlog quite like the Daily Princetonian archives.

For instance, there was yesterday afternoon. TB was looking through the Princeton baseball records on goprincetontigers.com when he saw that the record for strikeouts in a game is 17, set twice, by the same pitcher — L.A. Young. It seems Mr. Young struck out 17 Lafayette Leopards in consecutive seasons, on April 26, 1890, and again on April 25, 1891.

When TB went to the Daily Princetonian archives to find out more, he learned that there was no mention of the 1890 game at all and only this about the 1891 game:

The game with with Lafayette at Easton, after the first inning, in which Princeton made seven runs, was a fine exhibition of ball playing. Lafayette put up a good game after the first inning and though the ball was hit hard and often, Princeton scored but one more run. Young's pitchingwas superb. Fox, for Lafayette, made a brilliant catch of a hot liner.

Of course, in searching for that little bit of information, TigerBlog also got sidetracked with things like this: 

The University of Michigan has 2,420 students, a larger/lumber than any other college or university in the country. 

That was in a Princetonian news and notes section. He also found reference to an upcoming "real tennis" world championship match, one that would feature a best-of-13-sets format that would be played over four days if necessary. As it turns out, "real tennis" is still a "real thing," and the world championship still exists. Who knew? 

So what was TB doing in the Princeton baseball record book? He was looking up how many complete games Princeton pitchers had this year and then contrasting it with the records.

The Tigers have had four complete games this year, three of which came from Tom Chmielewski and one of which came from Jackson Emus. If you think that doesn't sound like many, consider that Princeton accounts for more than half of the complete games in the Ivy League, since everyone else had a combined three.

Complete games are largely a thing of the past, of course, on all levels. In the Major Leagues this season, there have been only 10 complete games. 

Cy Young is MLB's career leader in complete games with 749 of them. If you go down to No. 8 on the all-time list, you find Old Hoss Radbourn, who threw 488 complete games. As it turns out, Old Hoss was really named Charles, which isn't nearly as interesting. Old Hoss, who pitched in the Majors from 1880-1891 and who won 310 games, is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The Princeton record for consecutive complete games, by the way, belongs to Harry Gutheil, who once pitched 11 straight. And was this in the 19th century? No, this was across two seasons, 1992 and 1993. Gutheil was an undersized lefty who could throw a complete game in 60-70 pitches and be in complete control the whole time. He's one of TB's all-time favorite Princeton athletes.

Why the interest in complete games? Well, it's because the first Ivy League baseball tournament begins today at Penn's Tommy Lasorda Field. 

It'll be third-seeded Princeton and second-seeded Harvard at 11, followed by top-seeded Penn and fourth-seeded Columbia. The losers play at 11 tomorrow, with the loser of that game eliminated. The winners then play at 3. The tournament continues Sunday with another elimination game and then a game between the remaining unbeaten and the team that makes it back through the losers' bracket. There would be a deciding game Monday at noon if the team that was unbeaten loses the second game Sunday.

In other words, to get all the way through the tournament, you're going to need pitching. It would be helpful if your starters went deep into games, and the teams that lose today will find themselves having to use a lot of arms if they get to Monday. 

Chmielewski, not surprisingly, was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy League selection, as was Tiger outfielder Scott Bandura. Kyle Vinci, the Ivy League record-setter for home runs in a season with 20, was a second-team choice (TB wrote a feature story about Vinci that you can read HERE).

Princeton also had two other second-team picks, utility player Matt Scannell and DH Caden Shapiro, and two honorable mention picks, relief pitcher Jacob Faullkner and second baseman Noah Granet.

As Vinci said in the story, there isn't a member of the team who wasn't motivated by last year's 3-18 eighth-place finish. Now the Tigers are in the top 4 and ready for the first pitch of the first league tournament. 

It's time for important baseball in May for the Tigers.