28 Days Until Spring Training

There are only 28 days left until pitchers and catchers report to spring training. 

Here are some interesting facts about the number 28:

• BJ Upton hit a career high 28 home runs last year for the Rays. This offseason he signed a 5-year $75.25 million deal with the Braves. The Diamondbacks have dangled Bossman Jr.'s brother, Justin Upton in trade talks and count me as someone who would love to see an Upton/Upton/Heyward Outfield. That's Fantasy Baseball gold, with a high chance of some fools goldyears thrown in as well. 
• What do Adam Dunn, Pedro Alvarez, Drew Stubbs, Carlos Pena, Chris Davis, Mark Reynolds, Danny Espinosa and Curtis Granderson have in common? They all struck out at least 28% of the time. That's a lot of strike outs but it's also decent production as five of those players had a wRC+ of 108 or greater.
• In 1928 the Yankees swept the Cardinals in the World Series, Mickey Cochrane won the MVP  for the Philadelphia Athletics in the AL and Jim Bottemley won the MVP for the Cardinals. Bottomley had quite a season, leading the NL in home runs (31), triples (20) and RBI (136). Cochrane however, was pretty mediocre for the Athletics, only batting .293/.395/.464 in 131 games. Meanwhile, on the first place Yankees Babe Ruth batted .323/.463/.709, leading the league in home runs and RBI and Lou Gehrig batted .374/.467/.648. Neither Ruth or Gehrig received a single vote for MVP while their teammates Tony Lazzeri and Waite Hoyt received a few votes which sounds strange but it's because of an old rule. At that time a player could only receive a League Award once in his career, and since Ruth and Gehrig had previously won the award they were ineligible to win it again. 
• Whitey Ford was born in 1928. Ford finished with a 236-100 record and pitched in game one of the World Series in 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964. That's pretty cool. Ford's Win-Loss %  ranks 3rd all time behind Spud Chandler and Al Spalding. Yes, that is the Spalding from the sporting goods company. While Albert Goodwill Spalding is famous for his company, it should be noted that he led the league in wins from 1870-1876. In 1874, Spalding went 52-16 in 617.1 innings pitched. It was a different game back then. I wonder what glove he used. Rawlings? 
• On November 26, 1928 Butts Wagner died. Born Albert Wagner in 1871, Butts was Honus Wagner's older brother. Butts debuted in 1898 at age 26 and never saw the diamond again. I don't know if there was a Fredo/Michael Corleone thing going on with the Wagners, but it's safe to say that Honus was the better player. 
• Only one team has retired jersey #28 and that is the Twins and Bert Blyleven. Blyleven was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011. 
• Pitchers have won 28 games 33 different times but Dizy Dean did it most recently in 1935. From 1932-1937 Dean won 133 games, a MVP aware and went to four all-star games. In the 1937 All-Star game however, Dean was hit by a line drive injuring his foot. As a result, Dean was forced to change his pitching motion, unable to land on his foot the same way as before and unfortunately Dean was never the same. Still, Dean is in the Hall of Fame and has one of the better names in baseball.