"Arguing that Clayton Kershaw just pitched the best game in history."
http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/dodgersnow/la-sp-dn-dodgers-clayton-kershaw-best-no-hitter-20140619-story.html
Get serious Steve Dilbeck:
1. It's the Colorado Rockies who hit a buck fifty when they're not playing at Mile High Field in Denver.
2. It's Dodger Stadium where nobody hits at night.
3. It's a no-hitter not a perfect game.
4. It's not the World Series. It's a meaningless midseason game between two mediocre teams.
5. It's the Rockies
This is the perfect example of a HOMER, ie, a hometown sportswriter, Steve Dilbeck, hyping the hometown team. "Listen, the Rockies are a good-hitting team, but they were a deer in the headlights." At home in their hitter friendly ballpark, the Rockies have 12 players batting over .300. Their star Troy Tulowitzki is batting .477. Playing away in other peoples ballparks the Rockies have only three players batting over .300, and two of them together have played in a total of 8 games. Star Tulowitzki is batting .252 in away games.
Pitching in hitter unfriendly Dodger Stadium, all the Dodgers pitchers look like they're headed for the hall of fame. Pitching on the road, they look like a group of good pitchers.
Sandy Koufax pitched the best game I've ever seen pitched. It was game four of the 1963 World Series against the New York Yankees. In a day game at Dodger Stadium when the field is hitter friendly, Koufax beat Hall of Famer Whitey Ford by a score of 2 to 1. The Yankees scored their only run when Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle hit a home run. Koufax held the heavy hitting Yankees to six hits, including two each by perennial all stars Bob Richardson and Elston Howard. Two words sum up why Howard as a young player never played enough to make the Hall of Fame: Yogi Berra.
Don Larsen's World Series perfect game is the best ever. He beat the best Dodger team ever, and one the great baseball teams of all time in 1956: Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella (my favorite Dodger), Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo, Jim Gilliam, Duke Snider. The only Dodger in the lineup that day, including the pinch hitter Mitchell, who wasn't an All Star was Sandy Amoros, the left fielder. Four of the 1956 Dodgers are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
