This Week in 2001 (Week 13)

By Bill


By July 1 in 2001, we're about as close as possible to the exact halfway point of the season, as most teams have played either 80 or 81 games (about 3-4 games behind where we were on 7/1/11). Barry Bonds already has 39 home runs, Luis Gonzalez 32. Rookie Ichiro Suzuki is batting .345 with six triples and 27 steals; rookie Albert Pujols is batting .344/.411/.632 with 21 homers. The Rockies' big free agent signing of last winter, Mike Hampton, is 9-4 with a brilliant-for-2001-Coors 3.76 ERA, and Randy Johnson's just eleven shy of 200 strikeouts.

Here's one interesting thing from each day in the last week of the first half:

This Week in 2001 (Weeks 9-12)

By Bill


The "This Week in 2001" series, and my "10 years ago today" tweets, have fallen on hard times. Unfortunately, my life doesn't easily lend itself to observing regular routines right now. But I'll see what I can do about picking it up on a regular schedule again next week.

For now, instead of running through each of the last four weeks day by day (which you don't want to read, and I certainly don't want to write), here's a look at two or three highlights from each of the four weeks:

This Week in 2001 (Week 8)

Once again, the regular Friday morning event is pushed to Monday. Still, here's what happened ten years ago, ending last Friday:


Monday, May 21: It's another slow Monday -- six games this time, more than last week's three, but still, not a whole lot happens. Curt Schilling nets his complete game, though, leading the Diamondbacks over the Giants 4-2. In ten starts, he's 7-1 with a 2.99 ERA and 84 Ks in 75.1 innings.


Tuesday, May 22: In a battle of two of the hottest teams of the season to date, the Twins just squeak one past the amazing Mariners. The Twins, who had scored 8 in the third, add four insurance runs in the eighth to go up 12-7. The M's then proceed to score four off of Eddie Guardado and Latroy Hawkins in the top of the ninth, and the game ends, 12-11, when Mark MacLemore strikes out with Tom Lampkin representing the tying run at second base. The Mariners (32-12) now lead the AL West by 10 full games, while the Twins (30-13) take a 1.5-game lead over Cleveland in the Central.

This Week in 2001 (Week 7)

Lots more interesting stuff happened this week ten years ago. Lots of homers, lots of runs, a couple milestones, a couple records. Enjoy!


Monday, May 14: And I thought Mondays were boring now. There are only three games on this one (and not for the first time). But there's at least one interesting thing: a young relief pitcher named Roy Oswalt, making his third career appearance, picks up his first career win, going 3.2 innings (1 hit, 4 strikeouts) as the Astros score three in the seventh to come back and beat the Reds, 6-4.


Tuesday, May 15: Javier Vazquez throws a two-hit shutout for the Expos at home (2 hits, no walks, 9 strikeouts), beating Chan Ho Park and the Dodgers 2-0. In Toronto's 9-3 win over the Angels, Carlos Delgado hits homers 15 and 16; it's already his fifth multi-homer game of the year.

This Week in 2001 (Week 6)

Well, last week in 2001, really. Blogger went down last week at the time that I usually write this thing. Pretend it's Friday morning, except that you still have to work for four more days after this one.

Sunday, May 7: Making his first start of the season after missing the first month-plus with an injury, the Marlins' A.J. Burnett puts together an awfully nice debut against the Dodgers, allowing just three hits and one run while striking out seven (but walking five) in six innings. The great Kevin Brown does him one better, though, shutting out the Marlins for eight innings (two hits, two walks, 10 strikeouts). Jeff Shaw finishes the 1-0 win.

This Week in 2001 (Week 5)

So, readers, I have a confession to make. I was traveling and doing other things this week, and I kind of let the "10 years ago" tweets slide, for the most part. It won't happen again until the next time it happens. But here's a kind of abbreviated rundown of what happened this week, a decade ago:

This Week in 2001 (Week 4)

Here we are again. Four weeks into our real-time trip back through the fantastic season of 2001. That thing I was using to take images of my tweets has completely stopped working, so without further ado:

Monday, April 23: Only three games were played. Mondays (and Thursdays) have been the light days for quite a while now, but it feels like a long time since any regular season day was quite this light. Nonetheless, Randy Johnson had a particularly awesome day, throwing a complete-game shutout (6 hits, 0 walks, 10 strikeouts) as the Diamondbacks beat the Marlins 6-0.

This Week in 2001 (Week 3)

By Bill

Another week, another update from a decade ago. The program I use to clip out my favorite tweet of the week (this one) is on the fritz at the moment, so we'll just dive right in:

Monday, April 16: After another masterful performance by Greg Maddux (8 innings, 0 BB, 6 K, one unearned run), John Rocker enters with a 3-1 lead and, after two singles, a wild pitch, a passed ball, and a walk, it's 3-3, Rocker's second blown save of the year. He gets credit for the "win," though, when Rico Brogna's line drive single to right off of Dan Miceli (following two walks) scores B.J. Surhoff. Braves 4, Marlins 3.

This Week in 2001 (Week 2)

Here we go, continuing the hopefully-season-long Friday morning series I started last week, in which I take a look back ten years to what was happening in the week just past in the fascinating season of 2001. You can follow along on a daily basis on Twitter. Here's my favorite 2001 tweet from this week:

And here's a fuller breakdown of the week that was, April 9 through April 15, 2001:

This Week in 2001 (Week 1)

By Bill

A few days ago on Twitter, I started something I hope to keep up all season: one tweet a day that highlights something that happened on this date 10 years ago, in 2001. That season was one of the most interesting and action-filled in recent memory, and it's hard to believe that it was already a whole decade ago, so I thought it would be fun to kind of re-live the year in real time. Here's the first tweet:

So that's the idea. In connection with the Twitter effort, I've decided to write a weekly wrap-up, this Friday and hopefully every Friday, of what happened in baseball "this week" a decade ago (and it actually works out pretty well, as Saturday through Friday in our world was Monday through Sunday in 2001). So here's a look at a couple interesting notes from each day in the opening week: