Six-time All-Star third baseman Kasey O'Neil picked up his 2,000th hit yesterday in his 14th big league season. O'Neil, who played for the Boston Berserkers for his first 12 seasons and is now a member of the San Francisco Velocity, has been a consistent performer for years and shows up every day to play, having played in at least 151 games every season of his career from the age of 21 to now. He was out for 4 games last season with a case of bronchitis, but other than that, he is a true Iron Man. And with all of that consistency, durability, and longevity, O'Neil now becomes the 22nd player in WPK history to collect at least 2,000 career hits.
On the subject of durability, for Baltimore Lords fans that sadly is not a description they will likely ever hear said of their star center fielder Mike Schimmel. A day after seeing his 20-game hitting streak (stretching back to the 1981 season) end, the 4-time Gold Glove winner and 1 time All-Star suffered a season ending torn PCL. He and his team were both off to a great start and his absence is the first major challenge for the Lords this season. Fortunately for the Baltimore club, they have a pretty good young prospect in Noel McMillan who should be ready to step in and at least hold his own, with an above-average all-around hit tool, elite speed, and good defensive chops.
Let's take a quick look at the standings at the end of the second full week of the 1982 season:
As you can see, the Brewers stay hot, getting some nice performances this week from new guys catcher
Willie Ortega (.333/.400/.667), who went 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored, 4 RBI, hitting his 1st double and 2nd home run of the season in the Brewers Saturday evening 9-2 win over Brooklyn, and second baseman
Dustin Moore (.356/.396/.467).
The Brewers also got great starts from
Sadahige Kawasaki (3-0, 1.61),
Jim Atwell (0-2, 3.00), who gave up 1 earned run on 7 hits with 11 K's in 8 innings pitched in a heartbreaking extra inning loss to Brooklyn on Friday night. And then second year man
Eric Maisch (3-0, 1.61) continued his brilliant start to the 1982 season as he one-upped Atwell with 8 shutout innings, giving up 4 hits and no walks while striking out 12 batters in the Brewers Sunday afternoon 7-0 shutout of the Aces. (
Maisch was pulled having thrown 109 pitches with the game well in hand and the Brewer manager not wanting to take any chances with the young man who isn't known to have great stamina and is still developing at age 22.)
Val Guzman now leads the MGL in batting at .500 and
Brett Taranto is second at .480.