Biggio is 4 away, Alltime Righthanded Doubles Leader:WHERE IS THE DAMN ESPN HEADLINE?

are you sure baltimore wasn't a big market? remember it was a two city market for a while. and that's a heavily populated area.

 

He's in Houston too.

Not the same thing though. People saying Frank Thomas isn't getting any more love than Biggio right now are crazy. The sportscenter guys mention everybody thats approaching 500 on a daily basis. On the Monday morning sportscenter, the only think I saw on Biggio and 3,000 hits was a very bored sounding anchor saying he's one closer to 3,000. They don't even show Biggio's name on the bottom line when he has a hit in the game, but they will show that Carlos Lee was 0-4 with a k.

 

What is a two city market? DC?

 

disagree...they mentioned thomas a lot once he was 1 away to see if he got it. until then..not as much. Come on.."bored sounding anchor" for biggio? Seems like more "we get no respect" stuff..

 

well I don't know if two city market is an official term, but that's what I'm referring to.

 

you may be right.

nevertheless, the attention on ripken wasn't because he played for an east coast team. or a big market team. it was the feat he was accomplishing, the timing of that and the man whose record he was breaking. i've heard some argue (even though i disagree) that it's the most signficant record in all of sport. i don't think big market bias was the driver there.

 

I agree, ripken's record kind of transcended baseball. the working man could relate to going to work it everyday.

 

Nobody does it alone. Doran was my favorite before Biggio got here. I had no idea he did this...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/justice/4920009.html

June 26, 2007, 12:36AM
Memories of 20 seasons fill time off


By RICHARD JUSTICE
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Alan Ashby pulled him aside that first spring and said something so kind that Craig Biggio is still touched by it more than 19 years later.

"Look," he remembers Ashby telling him, "a lot of guys have been brought here to replace me. You're going to be the guy. I still want to play, but I'll always be here if you have questions. When you play, I want you to do well. I'll help you as much as I can, because we're in this thing together."

Biggio tells this story while seated in front of his locker Monday afternoon at Miller Park. He's not a sentimental person by nature, but on a day when he's not in the lineup and when he's again being asked to reflect on 20 seasons and 2,996 hits, he allows memories of teammates and friends to rush back.

He's on the verge of becoming the 27th member of baseball's 3,000-hit club, and as he has thought about the moment and braced himself for the emotions, he keeps coming back to the fact that 1988 was a great time for a young player to join the Astros.

His baseball education would be shaped by a lot of those first teammates and coaches. By Billy Doran and Yogi Berra, by Casey Candaele and Nolan Ryan. And by Ashby.

"Here was a guy at the end of his career," Biggio said. "He wants to play but knows I want to take his job. Yet he would do anything to help me succeed. That's a pro's pro. I was humbled and honored. He was probably the greatest pro I ever played with, and I played with a lot of 'em."

Three years later when the Astros were considering moving Biggio to second base, Billy Doran, the incumbent, tossed a glove in his direction when he found him fielding grounders one afternoon at Dodger Stadium.

"Here," he screamed, "use mine."


Doran pitches in
What happened that winter got much less attention. Doran flew to Houston, took Biggio inside the Astrodome and drew off a baseball diamond in the rodeo dirt.

"He came to Houston to try and teach me to play second base," Biggio said. "Nobody knew about it, either. I've been so blessed. To have someone willing to take the time
to do something like that
is just amazing. Some of the stuff he taught me I still use today."

Craig Alan Biggio was 22 when he took a red-eye flight from Tucson, Ariz., on June 26, 1988. His teammates were mostly thirtysomethings.

"I kept my mouth shut and did what I was told," Biggio said. "If you got out of line, they told you."

If he needed to use the bathroom on a team flight, he raised his hand and asked permission. When veterans wanted postgame refreshment, he fetched the cooler.

"The veterans had an inner circle," he said. "I knew to stay in the outer circle. I can't tell you how valuable it was for me to sit there and just listen to their stories."

For example, they drilled into him the importance of knowing every umpire's name and of never showing up one.

"You never call an umpire 'Blue,' " he said. "They had names, and you'd better know their names. If I questioned a call, I'd look straight ahead and say, 'Mr. Runge, did you miss that call?' Hunter Pence asked me the other day why I never talk to umpires. I told him I did talk to umpires, but only the catcher and the umpire knew it."

Among the many lessons he learned in those first years was toughness. He watched Doran blow out his back and keep playing. He saw Buddy Bell get two injections in his knee and not miss a beat.

Their examples served him well. He played last season with a bum shoulder that he kept secret. When he tore up his knee in 2000, he pushed himself through a grueling rehabilitation program to get back on the field the following spring. And the next winter, he went through the same program make sure the knee was strong.

"When I got hurt, people said, 'You're done,' " he remembered. "I was like, '(Forget) that.' "

He couldn't hit Kevin Gross, but he would never duck Gross. When manager Terry Collins was going to drop him to eighth in the batting order, he bristled.

"That's fine," he said. "I'm still going to play, and I might get a hit off him."

He pauses for emphasis.

"I never ducked anybody," he said.


Clowning Casey
Nor did he duck Candaele.

"He was the absolute best at keeping the team loose and having fun," he said. "Everyone thought he was a clown. But he was like Yogi. He knew the game better than almost anyone. He was a true professional. He'd start in the front of the bus and walk on the tops of the seats and pick on every single guy.

"By the time, he got to us in the back, it would be rough. The more money you made, the bigger you were, the harder he'd get on you. His comeback was always, 'What are you going to do? Beat me up? You're going to beat up a little guy?' "

Biggio had the talent and determination to succeed even without Ashby and Doran and others. But they helped. Along the way, he had some terrific teachers and a few laughs.

I wonder if there's a tinge of sadness in this week as he begins the final chapter of an amazing career.

"Absolutely not," he said. "I'm happy where I'm at, the place I'm in. I've got 20 great years. I've got three great kids and a wonderful wife. I've had a lot of great teammates. I'm in a great place."

 

Baltimore really was a big market. They had one of the top payrolls in the league for years, highest ratings, highest attendance, etc. They are in no way a small market, they are just run like crap.

And he's right, for a long time they were a multi-city market, drawing heavily on the areas surrounding Baltimore.

 

OK: for serious, now--we've got to come to an understanding of what a media market is. None of the things you list--not one--has a blessed thing to do with market size. There are just over 200 media markets in the US. The size of a media market is determined by the number of homes which have televisions. Houston, for example, is the nation's 4th largest city but only the 11th largest media market (that number is a few years old; it may have changed slightly).

They were 11th when they had one of the smallest payrolls in MLB, and they were 11th (ish) last year when they were in the top 25% of payrolls in MLB. Because payroll has *nothing* whatsoever to do with it.

Agreed!

I'm not sure if B-more and DC are one media market or not, but the Orioles did indeed draw from the larger area (although that also has nothing to do with market size--the Astros, for example, have a large following in Louisiana which has no impact whatsoever on their market size).

 

If we are talking purely media, then I really don't know. I thought we were talking revenue and the likes. I think when baseball teams are referred to by "market size" they are referring to revenue potential, not necessarily media accessibility.

 

It just seemed like an afterthought. They showed 3ABs for Thomas and only one for Biggio. Biggio has a good chance of getting 4 hits before Thomas gets one HR. At this point, I care about 500 homers about as much as I care about 300 homers. 3,000 hits is still 3,000 hits.

 

Come on now. Mountains, mole hills...some sort of expression is coming to mind.

Frank Thomas being one away from 500 means any swing of the bat could get him a milestone. The same can't be said for Biggio.

 

the larger market you are in, the more t.v. revenue you get. the yankees have the largest television contract, because they are in the largest media market. that's also why networks like espn focus on the yankees, because more people are watching television in new york, so if they increase ratings in large television markets, they increase adverstising dollars.

its all about the advertising


edit: more people watch in the new york area, its not just the city, its the surrounding areas.

 

http://home.nycap.rr.com/nickandaj/marketsize.html

Ok I just did some research. Baltimore is the top team in the medium-market size and is only slightly under large market size.

Edit: WAS

 

No, when baseball teams refer to "market size" the media market is *precisely* what they are referring to. As pgabriel points out, that's where the lion's share of revenue comes in.

 

everyone doing the complaining.. watch Baseball Tonight today?

They had a Biggio watch going into the commercial break. Came back, watched a couple of his ABs, including his hit. They had a little tracker thingy that changed up to 2997. The analysts were all hoping he got a hit in his 2nd at-bat since it was close.

Good enough for you?

 

You too?

Doran was my absolute favorite Astro, bar none. (OK, maybe tied with Nolan.)

I loved reading this article. (Surprised nobody had posted it.) As if I needed more reason to be a Doran fan:

Just an unbelievable story.

 

Looks like Houston is just above the small market teams and Baltimore is quite close to being a big market. So no surprise Ripken got more pub.

 

Bottom line is the Astros aren't playing great and Biggio is playing even worse. Here is an excerpt from the Upcoming Milestone thread:

I'm not downplaying this accomplishment, but to expect the same coverage as some of the other previous (Ripken Jr.) and upcoming (Bonds) milestones is absurd. There are a lot of feel good stories as of late (Jr. going back to Seattle), so I haven't been to surprised, but I do expect the media to pick it up once Biggio does pass the 3,000 mark.