Published: September 07, 2009 11:50 pm         

Ramblin' Reck: It’s milestone time in baseball … some good, some bad

One milestone was reached in major league baseball on Sunday while another was delayed — probably for only a day.

Ichiro Suzuki had one hit for Seattle against Oakland to give him 2,000 in his career, doing it in his 1,402nd game. Only Al Simmons did it quicker, in his 1,390th game.

That milestone is one of several that Suzuki is likely to reach in the sport. He needed nine hits after Sunday to reach 200 hits for what would be his 10th straight season — that would be a record.

He and Willie Keeler now share the mark of nine straight 200-hit seasons.

Pittsburgh, meanwhile, finally won a game by beating St. Louis to delay setting a dubious record.

With one more defeat, the Bucs will clinch their 17th straight losing season. That is longer than any other team in any major pro sport. Going into this season, they were tied with the 1933-48 Phillies for having 16 straight losing seasons.

The Chicago Cubs took a 1-0 lead against the Pirates on Monday to “help” them reach that milestone.



• New team — J.D. Spangler has a new cohort for his broadcasts of the Marshall High School football games on WMMC-FM 105.9 in Illinois.

Former Marshall athlete Joey O’Rourke was in the booth with J.D. for the Mahomet-Seymour game last week. He had filled in on some basketball games last year and does Indiana State sports on the student station.

Tim Bloodworth had been in the radio booth for football games for more than 10 years and was there for the Casey-Marshall game this season but is “retiring” to spend more time with his family.

Nice work, Tim.



• Tom-Cattin’ It — Not only did Curtis Painter make the Indianapolis Colts’ roster as a third quarterback but Rex Grossman made the Houston roster as the third quarterback for the Texans and has the chance to be the backup after a nice job coming back from injury last week.

• Did you notice that two ACC teams lost to former I-AA, now FCS, teams? Duke to Richmond and Virginia to William and Mary.

And Iowa was lucky to get by future Indiana State foe Northern Iowa.

• Jessica Parker, 6-foot basketball player at Bloomington South, says she will sign with Eastern Illinois. She averaged 12.9 points and seven rebounds as a junior.

• Murray State has hired Bret Campbell for its men’s basketball staff. He previously was Ohio Valley coach of the year at Tennessee-Martin.

• Maurice Creek has been declared eligible to play basketball at Indiana. He needed to take a class this summer to do it.

• Louisville has hired Pike assistant Shabaka Lands for its basketball staff. Pike player Marquis Teague is one of the top prospects in the country and says he will make a visit to North Carolina.

• Peyton and Ashley Manning announced Saturday that they will donate $1 million to Tennessee to be used for an athletic training facility. They did it at the dedication of a locker room bearing Peyton’s name.

• There’s a good reason St. Louis has a big lead in the NL Central. The Cardinals had won 10 of 12 road games before losing to Pittsburgh on Sunday.



Tom Reck may be contacted by telephone at (812) 232-3231, by email at tm_reck@yahoo.com or by mail at 4284 South 5th Street, Apt. 3, Terre Haute, IN 47802.