Runs and Bases: 1990's Part 1

[SWC75]

A NEW ERA (Actually several of them)

New Ballparks

The early nineties launched several new eras in baseball . They were good in some ways but I have some reservations about them as well.

First let’s talk ballparks. On April 6, 1992, the Baltimore Orioles began the era of the “RetroPark” with the opening of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. It was a picturesque downtown ballpark that began the trend for taking baseball back downtown to help revitalize the center of cities. It didn’t have stands completely surrounding the field so the place had a backdrop to it. Fans had a sense of where they were that they could not have gotten with the wedding cake stadiums of the 60’s and 70’s. The new parks were purpose built for baseball, not bland all-purpose parks. A big reason for their existence was the luxury boxes that were created for the big spenders. They tended to be hitter’s parks and thus favor offense over pitching and defense. The new parks were homages to the classic old downtown parks, with irregular outfield fences and quirky little things like an old fashioned incline in Houston with a flagpole in the middle of it. People had complained about the sameness of the old parks. Now playing the outfield was like playing a golf course: each field had designed “hazards” to make it more interesting and irregular distances that would benefit some hitters and dis advantage others.

And that was one of the downsides of it. We’d had a “neutral” period over the previous generation in which all the ballparks, (at least the newer ones) had consistent distances and walls that provided ‘true’ bounces. A football field is a football field. A basketball court is a basketball court. A hockey rink is a hockey rink. Shouldn’t a baseball field be a baseball field? Why do we need ‘quirky’ or ‘quaint’? Isn’t sport supposed to be fair?

I think what bothers me the most about the new ballparks is that it seems to me that public buildings should be designed to last for several generations, at least 50 years or so. Instead, we were replacing the second generation of ballparks when they should have been middle aged. And we were doing it on the public coin, because the team owners knew they could get the local burg to do their bidding simply by threatening to move their teams to a city that would give them what they wanted. After the great success of Camden Yards, every owner wanted their own Camden Yards and a lot of local government were put in a squeeze by having to fork up millions for expensive new stadiums, (and all the work that had to be done to the surrounding area to accommodate them), or lose the team that gave the city some of its identity on the national scene.- and maybe lose the votes the team’s fans in the next election.

Here is a listing of each major league city and when the ballparks they have played in opened:

ANGELS: Wrigley Field (Los Angeles) 1961; Dodger Stadium 1962; Angel Stadium of Anaheim, (the Big A) 1966
ASTROS: Colt Stadium 1962; The Astrodome 1965; Minute Maid Park (formerly Enron Stadium) 2000
ATHLETICS – Philadelphia: Columbia Park 1901; Shibe Park 1909; Kansas City: Municipal Stadium 1955; Oakland: Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum 1968 Las Vegas: Cashman Field (16 games in 1996 while Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum was being renovated).
BLUE JAYS- Exhibition Stadium 1977; Rogers Center, (formerly the Skydome) 1990
BRAVES- Boston: South End Grounds 1871; Congress Street Grounds 1894; South End Grounds; Fenway Park 1914; Braves Field 1915. Milwaukee: Milwaukee County Stadium 1953. Atlanta: Fulton County Stadium 1966; Turner Field 1997; Sun Trust Park 2017.
BREWERS: Seattle: Sick’s Stadium 1969; Milwaukee: Milwaukee County Stadium 1970; Miller Park 2001
CARDINALS: Sportsman’s Park I 1882; Robison Field 1893; Sportsman’s Park III, (renamed Busch Stadium 1954) 1920; Busch Stadium II 1966; Busch Stadium III 2006.
CUBS- 23rd Street Grounds 1876; Lakefront Park I 1878; Lakefront Park II 1883; West Side Park I 1885; South Side Park 1891; West Side Park II 1893; Wrigley Field, (former Weeghman Park and Cubs Park) 1916.
DIAMONDBACKS- Chase Field, (Formerly Bank One Ballpark) 1998
DODGERS- Brooklyn- Washington Park I 1884; Ridgewood Park, (Sundays only) 1886; Eastern Park 1891-1897; Washington Park II 1898; Ebbets Field 1913; Roosevelt Stadium (15 games) 1956-57; Los Angeles: Los Angeles Coliseum 1958; Dodger Stadium 1962.
GIANTS- New York- Polo Grounds I (the only one where polo was actually played) 1883; Oakland Park 1889; St. George Cricket Grounds 1889; Polo Grounds II 1889; Polo Grounds III 1891; Hilltop Park 1911; Polo Grounds IV 1911. San Francisco: Seals Stadium 1958; Candlestick Park 1960; Pac Bell, (Now AT&T) Park 2000.
INDIANS- League Park 1901-46; Cleveland Municipal Stadium 1932-46 (Sundays and Holidays), then all games to 1993; Progressive Field, (originally Jacobs Field) 1994.
MARINERS: Kingdome 1977; Safeco Field 1999
MARLINS: New Miami Stadium, (formerly Joe Robbie Stadium, etc.) 1993; Marlins Park 2012
METS- Polo Grounds IV 1962; Shea Stadium 1964; Citi Field 2009
NATIONALS: Montreal: Jarry Park Stadium 1969; Olympic Stadium 1977. Washington: RFK Stadium 2005; Nationals Park 2008.
ORIOLES: Milwaukee: Lloyd Street Grounds 1901; St. Louis: Sportsman’s Park II 1902; Sportsmen’s Park III 1909. Baltimore Memorial Stadium 1954; Orioles Park at Camden Yards 1992.
PADRES: Qualcomm Stadium, (formerly Jack Murphy Stadium) 1969; Petco Park 2004
PHILLIES- Recreation Park 1883; Baker Bowl 1887; Shibe Park, (renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953), 1938; Veteran’s Stadium 1971; Citizen’s Bank Park 2004.
PIRATES: Exposition Park I 1882; Recreation Park 1884; Exposition Park II 1891; Forbes Field 1909; Three Rivers Stadium 1970; PNC Park 2001.
RANGERS: Washington: Griffith Stadium 1961; RFK Stadium 1962; Arlington Stadium 1972; Globe Life Park, (formerly “The Ballpark”) 1994.
RAYS: Tropicana Field 1998
REDS: Union Cricket Grounds 1866-1870; Bank Street Grounds 1882; League Park I 1882; league Park II 1884; Palace of the Fans 1902; Crosley Field 1912; Riverfront Stadium 1970; Great American Ballpark 2003.
RED SOX- Huntington Avenue Grounds 1901; Fenway Park 1912.
ROCKIES- Mile High Stadium 1993; Coors Field 1995
ROYALS: Municipal Stadium 1969; Kauffmann Stadium 1973
TIGERS: Bennett Park 1901-11; Burns Park 1901-02 (Sundays only); Tiger Stadium, (formerly Navin Field and Briggs Stadium) 1912; Comerica Park 2000.
TWINS: Washington: American League Park 1901; National Park 1903; Griffith Stadium 1911; Minnesota: Metropolitan Stadium 1961; Metrodome 1982; Target Field 2010
WHITE SOX- South Side Park 1900; Comiskey Park 1910-1990 Milwaukee County Stadium (20 games, 1968-69); U.S. Cellular Field (formerly Comiskey Park II) 1991.
YANKEES- Hilltop Park 1903; Polo Grounds 1913; Yankee Stadium I 1923; Shea Stadium 1974; Yankee Stadium II 1976; Yankee Stadium III 2009.

The early parks were short-lived arenas with wooden grandstands that, if they didn’t burn down in the meantime, were easily torn down when a better facility became available. As the popularity of the game grew and the capabilities of architecture also grew, more permanent structures were desired and the famous ballparks of the 20th century were built: Forbes Field, (which was in use for 62 years inclusive), Shibe Park, (the same) and Sportsmen’s Park, (58 years), in 1909; Comiskey Park (81 years) in 1910; The Polo Grounds (63 years) in 1911, Crosley Field, (59 years), Fenway Park, (still in use in its 105 year), and Tiger Stadium, (88 years) in 1912; Ebbets Field (45 years) in 1913; Wrigley Field, first used by Chicago’s Federal league team in 1914, (and still in use 103 seasons later); Braves Field (38 years) in 1915; Yankee Stadium I (51 years) in 1923 and Cleveland Municipal Stadium (64 years) , which first opened in 1931. That’s an average of 68 years of use.

The stadia built in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s were: Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, originally built in 1950 and in use until 1997 (38 years, inclusive); Milwaukee County Stadium 1950 (48 years), Municipal Stadium in Kansas City 1955 (18 years); Metropolitan Stadium 1956, (26 years); Candlestick Park 1960 (40 years), Jarry Park Stadium, first opened in 1960 and still in use for various events (57 years); RFK Stadium 1961 and still in use for soccer and other events (56 years), Dodger Stadium 1962 (55 years); Shea Stadium 1964, (44 years); The Astrodome 1965 and in use until 2008 (44 years), Arlington Stadium, first built in 1965 (29 years); Angel Stadium, (51 years); Busch Stadium, (41 years), Oakland-Alameda Country Stadium, (51 years), Qualcomm Stadium still used by the Chargers (51 years) in 1966; Three Rivers Stadium (31 years), Riverfront Stadium (33 years) 1970; Veteran’s Stadium (33 years ) 1971; The Kingdome (24 years) and Yankee Stadium II (33 years) in 1976, Olympic Stadium (28 years), 1977. I didn’t count Colt Stadium in Houston which was a temporary facility the Houston team used while the Astrodome was being built or the Metrodome which opened in 1982 and lasted 32 years. That’s 22 facilities that were in use an average of 38 years. And they were in use that long because they were built as all-purpose facilities. Their average major league baseball life was 32 years, less than half that of the first generation of ball parks that were built to be the permanent homes of teams.

Now owners are ready to move to a fourth generation of parks. Atlanta will move into a new park next season, after only 20 years in Turner Field. The Rangers are demanding a new park to be built by 2021, meaning they will have been in was regarded as an excellent example of the new parks for 27 seasons. And the taxpayers will have to fork up the money for this, despite whatever else needs paying for, or lose their team.

 

[SWC75]

Sanity Returns to Baseball

One trend I did really like that started in the early 90’s was that the Triple Crown became possible again.

I grew up in an era when the top hitters in baseball hit for both average and power. It was a long era. Babe Ruth hit .342 lifetime with 714 home runs. Lou Gehrig hit .340 with 493 homers. Jimmie Foxx hit .325 with 534 homers. Those numbers were their baseball signature. Joe DiMaggio’s Signature was .325-361. Ted Williams was .344-521. Stan Musial was .331-475. Willie, Mickey and the Duke were .302-660 / .298-536 / .295-407. Henry Aaron was .305-755.

Triple Crowns had been won by:
Paul Hines in 1878, .358-4-50
Tip O’Neill in 1887, .435-14-123
Hugh Duffy in 1894, .440-18-145
Nap Lajoie in 1901, .426-14-145
Ty Cobb in 1909, .377-9-107
Rogers Hornsby in 1922, .401-42-152
Rogers Hornsby in 1925, .403-39-143
Jimmie Foxx in 1933, .356-48-163
Chuck Klein in 1933: .368-28-120
Lou Gehrig in 1934, .363-49-165
Joe Medwick in 1937, .374-31-154
Ted Williams in 1942, .356-36-137
Ted Williams in 1947, .343-32-114
Mickey Mantle in 1956, .353-52-130
Frank Robinson in 1966, .316-49-122
Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, .326-44-121

Then we entered an era when hitters were either hitters for average or hitters for power but not both. From 1969-1991 there were 46 batting titles. Three of them were won by batters with Triple Crown type-numbers: Billy Williams in 1972, .333-37-122; Dave Parker 1978, .338-30-117 and Fred Lynn 1979, .333-39-122, (none of whom won it). Twenty-two of the champions hit only single figures in home runs, including Rod Carew who in 1972 won a batting title without ever hitting a home run. Ten more batting champions hit home runs in the teens. The average number of home runs hit by the batting champs was 13 in this period. It was the era of the “banjo hitter” winning batting titles.

There were 54 home run titlists over the same period, (because of ties). Thirteen of hem hit .300. Three of those hit .320- exactly: Willie McCovey in 1969, George Foster and Jim Rice in 1977. None won a batting title. Dave Kingman won a home run title with a .204 average In 1975 Mike Schmidt led the National League in homers while hitting.249 and Reggie Jackson led the AL while hitting .253 Kingman led the league in strike outs 3 times, Schmidt 4 times and Jackson 5 times. Willie Stargell, Dale Murphy, Jim Rice, Gorman Thomas, Tony Armas and Cecil Fielder all won both homerun and strikeout titles. The mean batting average for a home run titlist from 1969-1991 was .272.

I recall Reggie Jackson being asked why he hit .357 lifetime in the World Series and .262 in the regular season. “Well it’s hard to maintain concentration throughout the regular season.” Really? Ted Williams did a pretty good job of it. A better explanation is that the attitude had crept into the game that if you can hit home runs, home runs are all that matters. Rob Deer, a lifetime .220 hitter who, per 162 games hit 32 home runs but struck out 198 times said “I could cut down on my swing and hit .270 but I’d hit 12 home runs and be out of the league.” It seemed to me that if Rob Deer, with his power, ever hit .270, he’d hit 50 home runs. If you’ve got natural home run power, you should be concentrating on maximizing the number of time you hit the ball solidly and that will produce the home runs. Violently swinging at anything you think you might be able to hit would only be necessary if you didn’t have great home run power and if you don’t have that, you shouldn’t be swinging for the fences anyway.

In the 1990’s, sanity returned to baseball. A new generation of hitters managed to figure out that the key is how often you make good contact with the ball. Barry Bonds from 1986-89 hit .256 with a .345 on base percentage and a .458 slugging percentage. Per 162 games he averaged 81 walks with 104 strike outs. But it was OK because he had power and speed: 24 homers, 33 steals. He was a classic offensive talent of the 1970’s and 80’s. Then he became a classic offensive talent of the 1990’s.

From 1990-94 he hit .310, got on base 43.2% of the time and slugged .604. He averaged 119 walks and 79 strikeouts per 162 games. And he averaged 40 home runs and 44 steals because he was making better contact with the ball and getting on base more so he would have more opportunities to steal bases. I don’t know if everybody looked at him the way batters began to look at Babe Ruth back in the 20’s and wonder if they could play the game the same way, (if it was then maybe we should look at the 90’s and 2000s as the Barry Bonds era, just as that was the Babe Ruth era). But for whatever reason, suddenly old fashioned sluggers popped up everywhere.

Frank Thomas came up in the second half of the 1990 season for the White Sox and hit .330 with 7 homers and 44 walks in 60 games. In his first seven and a half seasons, before injuries and personal problems caught up with him, Thomas averaged an astounding .330BA .452OBP .600SP. In 1990 Ryne Sandberg hit .306 with 40 homers and 100 RBIs. In 1991, Cal Ripken hit .323-34-114 RBIs, Danny Tartabull hit .316-31-100 and Will Clark hit .301-29-116. In 1992, Gary Sheffield hit .330-33-100. And Ken Griffey Jr. hit .308-27-108. In 1993, Griffey was .309-45-109, Thomas .317-41-128, Bonds .336-46-123, Juan Gonzalez .310-46-118 and Mike Piazza .318-35-112. And the real explosion hadn’t even started yet. Somewhere, Ted Williams and Hank Aaron were smiling. Batters knew how to hit again.

 

[SWC75]

A Sea Change

In 1994 came the explosion and it produced a tidal wave of hitting. . In the 123 years since the National Association began playing in 1871, (74 of those years in the “live ball” era), 11 batters had hit 50 or more home runs a total of 18 times:

Babe Ruth did it four times: 54 in 1920, 59 in 1921, 60 in 1927 and 54 in 1928.
Hack Wilson hit 56 in 1930, the year the entire National League hit .303.
Jimmie Foxx did it twice: 58 in 1932 and 50 in 1958, when
Hank Greenberg hit 58 home runs.
Johnny Mize and Ralph Kiner hit 51 home runs in 1947 and Kiner hit 54 two years later in 1949.
Willie Mays hit 51 in 1955 and Mickey Mantle 52 the next year, 1956.
In 1961, for the only time in history two teammates topped the 50 mark: Mantle with 54 and Roger Maris with 61.
Mays hit 52 in 1952.
George Foster matched that a dozen years later in 1977.
Cecil Fielder hit 51 in 1990.

After Mantle and Maris in 1961, people thought that with the expansion era, the home run record was going to be broken repeatedly – and undeservedly. Commissioner Ford Frick, who co-wrote the Babe’s biography ordered that the mound be raised and the strike zone increased, thus creating the pitcher-dominated era of the 1960’s. That and the new ballparks, which tended to favor pitchers due to their regular dimensions, the record was actually less threatened than it had been in the previous era. Roger Maris’ record lasted longer than Babe Ruth’s. After 15 fifty home run years in 42 seasons, there were only 3 in the next thirty-three years.

I remember that, entering the 90’s, there was concern that power hitting was declining. 1989 had been the first year of the live ball era when nobody in minor league baseball hit 30 home runs. Where were the young power hitters? There was nothing to worry about. From the beginning of the 1994 season, it was obvious that something was up. People were hitting home runs like they were going out of style. As of August 12, 1994, Matt Williams of the Giants was hitting .267 but with 43 home runs and 96 RBIs in 112 games. More impressive was Houston’s Jeff Bagwell, who was batting an astronomical .368 with 39 homers and 116 RBIs. (Even Bagwell wasn’t close to leading the league in batting average: Tony Gwynn was hitting .394.) Barry Bonds was .312-37-81. Fred McGriff was .318-34-94. Andres Galarraga was .318-31-85. Kevin Mitchell was .326-30-77. Mike Piazza was .319-24-92. In the American league Ken Griffey Jr. was .323-40-90. Frank Thomas was .353-38-101. Albert Belle was .357-36-101. Jose Canseco was .282-31.90. Joe Carter was .271-27-103. Kirby Puckett was .317-20-112.

And then it ended- for the moment. The season was prematurely ended by another baseball strike. Commissioner Fay Vincent had accused the owners of stealing $280 million from the players using their collusion tactics of the previous decade. He singled out Bud Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox. Vincent was fired by the owners in 1992 and replaced by Selig, the first owner/commissioner. It was essentially a palace coup. Reinsdorf was said to be the driving force behind the strike, convincing the other owners that they could break the union. The owner’s demands were for, among other things, elimination of salary arbitration restrictions on free agency and a salary cap. The union couldn’t agree to those changes and Reinsdorf knew it. Reinsdorf had convinced the other owners that they could break the union if they held out.

The strike canceled the rest of the season and even the post-season. It was the first time in 100 years there had been no World Series, since John McGraw had refused to play in what would have been the second series. We’d even had World Series through the World Wars. The strike was finally ended when US district Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, (who is now on the Supreme Court), issued an injunction binding the owners and the players to adhere to the terms of existing collective bargaining agreement until a new one could be worked out. Reinsdorf still had the owners refusing to sign free agents until one of them broke ranks. It was Reinsdorf, who signed Albert Belle. The strike was over.

People- and sportswriters- expressed frustration that such a great season as 1994 had been destroyed by more labor troubles. But you’d have to be blind not to see the connection. If all the players had played 162 games and had hit home runs at the rate they had been in 1994 for the entire 162 games, eight players would have hit 50+ home runs in one season. Jeff Bagwell would have broken Hack Wilson’s 64 year old National league home run record with 57. But he would have finished second to Matt Williams who would have broken Roger Maris’s record with 62. Junior Griffey would have led the American league with 58 home runs. Albert Belle would have hit 55. Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas would have hit 54 each. Kevin Mitchell would have hit 51 homers and Gary Sheffield 50. Fred McGriff and Andres Galarraga just missed with 49. If that season had ended with those results it would have been completely apparent that something had suddenly changed in a big way.

In 1990, There were 3,317 home runs hit in major league baseball in 4,210 games. That’s 128 per 162 games.
In 1991 it was 3,383 homers in 4,208 games = 130 per 162.
In 1992 it was 3,038 homers in 4,212 games = 117 per 162
In 1993 it was 4,030 homers in 4,538 games = 144 per 162.

Now, 1993 was an expansion year. Before we move on, let’s look at the same numbers for the other expansion years:

In 1960 in the American League, (the year before they expanded), 143 homers were hit per 162 games. In 1961, the year of the expansion, that went up to 153. In 1962, the year after expansion it was 155.

For the National League, in 1961-63, it was 157-145-127. That’s right, the home run rate actually declined in the expansion year. It further declined in 1963 because that was the year that Ford Frick ordered the mound raised and the strike zone enlarged.

Both leagues expanded in 1969. Their combined home run averages in 1968-70: 99-130-103. Bowie Kuhn rescinded Frick’s changes for the 1969 season. The new ball parks reduced home runs with their regular dimensions. Home runs again declined after the expansion year.

The National League expanded in 1977. Here are their averages from 1976-78: 93-136-106. Again the expansion year showed a sharp rise in home runs but the next year was a return to the norm for the time.

So the impact of expansion on home run totals is less predictable than one might think but one could expect a decline in the following year. It didn’t happen:

In 1994 it was 3,306 homers in 3,200 games = 167 per 162. And here is the rest of the decade:
In 1995 it was 4,081 homers in 4,034 games = 164 per 162
In 1996 it was 4,962 homers in 4,534 games = 177 per 162
In 1997 it was 4,640 homers in 4,532 games = 166 per 162
In 1998 it was 5,064 homers in 4,864 games = 169 per 162
In 1999 it was 5,528 homers in 4,856 games = 184 per 162.

In my last post in this series I showed the major league slugging averages over the years. Here are the all-time top 20 years in major league slugging percentage:

1) 1894 and 2000 .438
2) see above
3) 1930 and 1999 .435
4) see above
5) 2004 .428
6) 1996 and 2001 .427
7) see above
8) 1994 .425
9) 2003 and 2007 .423
10) see above
11) 1998 and 2006 .422
12) see above
13) 1997 .420
14) 2005 and 2009 .419
15) see above
16) 1995 .418
17) 1929, 2002, and 2008 .417
18) see above
19) see above
20) 1987 .415

1894 was the year the pitcher’s mound was moved back from 50 to 60 feet. It took the pitchers a while to recover. 1929-1930 came after the ball had been redesigned in the wake of Babe Ruth’s impact on the game. 1987, as discussed before, was a year when the ball was strongly suspected of being juiced. It came after a period of increasing offensive output following the 1981 strike. The other 16 years are 1994-2009. Clearly, there was a sea change in 1994 and the water level remained that high for 16 years.

What produced this change? As usual there were many theories:

- The weather in 1994. Nope. That doesn’t explain the next 16 years.
- New ballparks. Yes, they favored hitters but the only new ball park that opened in 1994 was Coors Field, the biggest ballpark in the major leagues. This was in the National League and there was no interleague play yet.
- Pitchers don’t pitch inside like they used to. I hear the same thing today from players who were playing then. It’s something all ballplayers say about the next generation. Even if true for the 1990’s, it wasn’t something that suddenly happened in 1994.
- A variation on the last one was that pitchers face aluminum bats in the amateur ranks and are afraid to throw inside. Same problem: it has nothing to do with 1994.
- Steroids. Again, why a sudden change in 1994? Surely steroids were not suddenly distributed to hundreds of major league players for the first time in 1994.

Look at the players listed in the Mitchell Report as having used body or performance enhancing drugs:
List of Major League Baseball players named in the Mitchell Report - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I see some big names there: Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Roger Clemens, Lenny Dykstra, Eric Gagne, David Justice, Andy petite, Mo Vaughn, Jose Canseco, Troy Glaus, Matt Williams and Wally Joyner. But there’s also Marvin Benard, Bobby Estella, Jeremy Giambi, Mark Carreon, Chris Donnels, Matt Franco, David Segui, Nook Logan and Rickey Bones, among many others who were never anything like big-time home run hitters. Obviously, you don’t get talent out of a needle.

I think it’s obvious what happened here. Jerry Reinsdorf and the owners were going to try to make one last effort to break the union by forcing a strike. They knew this would be hugely unpopular and would cost the game many fans. To lessen the impact of the strike and get the fans back afterward, they ordered the laces tightened on the ball to unprecedented levels so there would be unprecedented levels of power-generated offense. It worked and because it worked, the owners kept the laces tight for years afterwards

MLB finally came up with a “Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program” in 2006 to crack down on steroids but offensive production remained high until 2009 and even after that, it’s settled down to a level of about .400 for the major league slugging percentage, well above the pre 1994 numbers. The steroid issue has remained a good cover for the owner’s actions, transferring the ‘blame’ for the offensive explosion to the players. But it was the strike and the juiced ball that created the sea change.

The on the field impact of the sea change is that baseball became very high scoring. Curt Gowdy used to say back in the 70’s, when he did the play-by-play for the game of the week that the average score of a major league baseball game was 4-2. When the average score is 4-2, 1-0 and 10-8 games are exceptional and create excitement as a pitcher’s duel or a slugfest. But if all the games seem to be 1-0 or 2-1, as they did in 1968, the pitcher’s duels are unexceptional and the slugfests too rare to have an impact. (See Soccer.) When the 10-8 games become the norm and the 1-0 games become too rare, the same thing happens. (See basketball.) The game is more interesting when it’s balanced between defense and offense.

The seas change also produced a more one-dimensional game. Teams tried to win by hitting home runs and stopped doing the things that could produce scores in between those home runs. The stolen base became passe, along with the bunt and hit and run. Why run the bases aggressively and risk not being on them when the big pop comes? The balance between types of offense that characterized the “neutral period” of the 70’s and 80’s was gone, too.

Off the field, allowing steroids to continue as the operative theory for the explosion causes players and even non-players to seek them out thinking that they will become more physically talented or impressive if they take them. Steroids are medications designed to accelerate tissue growth. In small, prescribed amounts, they can help people recover from injuries, (and by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that: I think players should be allowed to use them for that purpose in situations controlled by the league). But the people taking them were looking to create new and better versions of themselves, ignoring the highly problematic side-effects. And t people who supply them on the black market could care less of the side-effects on their clients. I think baseball owners need to admit that they forced the 1994 strike and that they juiced the ball to insure the continuing popularity of the game. Maybe then people would take another look at that Mitchell Report list and realize that steroids did not create the offensive explosion and that it won’t turn them into All-Stars or comic book super-heroes.

 

[SWC75]

Wild Cards and Interleague Play

There was one more “new era” that began in the 1990’s. Budd Selig pushed through a plan to realign the major leagues into six divisions, with a wild card team in each league’s playoff and with it an extra level of playoffs. A few years later he added interleague play to take advantage of the game’s natural geographical rivalries. Many people delighted in these innovations. I am definitely not one of them.

Baseball is a summer sport. It’s just not the same when played in uncomfortably cold weather. Football is different. You expect, if you are outside, to have to brace yourself against the elements. But a trip to the ball park is the best way to take advantage of a warm summer evening. It’s OK, if a little weird to have basketball and hockey decide their championships in June because they are played indoors. Even football normally plays its February Super Bowl indoors or in the south. Baseball needs to be decided in warm or at least no in cold weather. When there was just the World Series, that was decided in the first 10 days of October, which doesn’t present many problems. If you need one set of preliminary series, that takes us to mid-October. That’s doable but there are going to be some cold nights, particularly since the games are all played at 9PM to fit into TV schedules. When you require a third set of series before that, now you are pushing into late October and November and for any games played in the north, it’s just not baseball weather. Shivering ballplayers are not going to play at a championship level and shivering fans aren’t going to enjoy their efforts as much. The fans at home are wondering why they are still playing baseball in the middle of the football season.

Baseball plays 162 games. That’s twice as many as basketball and hockey and ten times as much as football. The teams in first place at the end of a 162 game season are not there by accident. It’s not appropriate that, after 162 games, a second place team could move on to win the World Series. Of course, a second place team might be better than a team that wins a 4 or 5 team division. When the 1994 strike occurred, the Texas Rangers were leading the American League West, a four team division, with a 52-62 record. Imagine if such a team had made the playoffs, gotten ‘hot’ and won the World Series?

It also has to be realized how easy it is to upset a team in baseball. So easy, the term “upset” is rarely used. A last place team can beat a first place team and it’s just another score. Baseball is a game of rotations. You have a different team depending on who is on the pitcher’s mound. And you can’t see to it that Jim Brown or Michael Jordan gets the ball on every possession. Babe Ruth batted every ninth player, just like the pticher. And he was a man trying to hit a moving round ball with a round bat. Nobody else in sport tries to do that. And you can’t physically force the other team to lose by blocking, tackling or checking them into the boards. There’s no blitz or full court press. There’s no “defense” in the sense of other sports. There’s pitching and fielding, but that’s not the same thing. That makes this sport the one in which you most have to honor the achievements of the regular season. After 162 games, you don’t want your champion to just be the team that gets hot in the playoffs. You want a champion who first proved their right to be there and then won the title against other teams who had done the same thing. .

Once upon a time baseball had two 8 team leagues. There was a “first division” in each league, consisting, usually of the top 4 teams who would contend for the title and then the bottom four teams who were not good enough to do so. That was the case through 60 years that included two world wars, a depression and arrival league. Nobody went out of business. In that 60 years the team with the worst regular season record to appear in the World Series was the 1959 Dodgers, who finished the regular season 86-68, then swept a best of 3 playoff with the Braves, (set up to break a tie), to go to 88-68. Thus, for 60 years, there was never a team in the World Series that wasn’t at least 20 games over .500. That remained true until the 1973 Mets, who managed to win a 6 team division with an 82-79 record and then upset the 99-63 Reds in the NCS, then took the 94-68 Athletics to the 7th game in the World Series. I was not yet a Mets fan and recall being relieved that an 82-79 team didn’t win the World Series. The 1974 A’s won the Series after a 90-72 season. The 1981 Dodgers were 63-47, which over 162 games translates to 93-69. In 1987 the 85-77 Twins, helped by an overwhelming home field advantage, (which they got on an alternating basis, not based on their regular season record, won the World Series, by far to that point the worst ever record for a World Series champion. They actually managed to win a 7 team division with that record and went undefeated at home in the playoffs.

Then, in 1995, (delayed a year by the strike),we had six divisions and a wild card. The 1997 Marlins were the first second place team to win the World Series but at least they were 92-70. The 2000 Yankees fell apart at the end of the regular season, losing 15 of their last 18 games including losses by 1-11, 4-15, 3-16, 4-15 again and consecutive games of 1-11, 2-11, 3-13 and 1-9, to finish 87-74. But they won a flat five team division and got it together in the playoffs, beating a 91-70 Athletics team, a 90-71 Mariners team that had lost a one game playoff to the A’s and a 94-68 Mets team, (that was also a second place team) in the World Series. In the old two division set-up, they would have finished second to the 90-72 Indians. In 2002 the second place Angels won the series. At least they were 99-63. But they were 4 games behind the A’s. In 2003 it was the second place Marlins at 91-71, 10 games behind the Braves. In 2004 it was a second place Red Sox team at 98-64. The Yankees beat them out by 3 games but had to beat them in the post season, as well. They could not. In 2006 The Cardinals won a flat 6 team division with a 83-78 record. In the old days, they would have finished 13 ½ games behind the Mets but the Cardinals beat them in the NLCS and then beat the 95-66, (second place) Tigers in the series. In 2011 the Cardinals finished 90-72, 6 games behind the Brewers, whom they defeated in the NLCS before winning the series from the Rangers. In 2014 the Giants and Royals played in the new wild card game- a single game- before winning the “divisional” series and the league championship series. They then played a terrific 7 game World Series between an 88-74 team and an 88-74 team, each the fourth best record in their league.

In 2005, I had a debate on the old Connecticut baseball board we used to use to discuss “other sports” about the wild card and someone, either a Yankee Red Sox fan could not see why anyone would be against the system. The Yankees and Red Sox had met in classic series in both the 2003 and 2004 post seasons and he wondered “why anyone wouldn’t want to see those two go at it for 7 games”. That season the AL had scheduled the two teams for a much-anticipated four game series to end the regular season in Fenway Park. When the time came to play that series, both teams had already wrapped up the playoffs and neither cared who won the American League East. The big final series turned out to be basically Scranton vs. Pawtucket. Everyone assumed they’d be meeting in the playoffs anyway so who cared? But the Angels beat the Yankees and the White Sox beat the Red Sox and the much anticipated post season series never materialized. In fact, the Yankees and Red Sox have never met in a post season series since.

What has happened is that baseball’s drama has mostly shifted from August and September, when it used to be so great that Willie Mays twice fainted in the middle of pennant races, to October. The problem is, this cedes August and September to football. People are watching “Hard Knocks” and then NFL Red Zone instead of pennant races. By the time these post season confrontations play themselves out, they are off the front of the sports page, (if there is still a sports page). Baseball needs a bridge from mid-summer, the last beachhead it still has when the attention of the nation is focused on it, to the post season and the pennant races were that bridge. They’ve eliminated that bridge by extending the playoffs. A sport wrestling with the monster football has become can’t afford to so weaken itself.

Bud Selig’s other great idea was interleague play. The Yankees vs. the Mets! The Cubs vs. the White Sox! The Cardinals vs. the Royals! The Athletics vs. the Giants! The Dodgers vs. the Angels! The Astros vs. the Rangers!. Alas it also included the Yankees vs. the Marlins, the Mets vs. the Tigers, the Cubs vs. the Royals, the White Sox vs. the Reds, the Athletics vs. the Rockies, the Giants vs. the Mariners, the Dodgers vs. the Rangers, the Angels vs. the Padres and the Astros vs. the Twins, none of which anyone had been clamoring for. Even the natural rivalry games were glorified mayor’s trophy games since the teams weren’t competing for the same title. It was fun seeing the Mets play the Yankees, (especially when journeyman Dave Mlicki shut them out 6-0 in Yankee Stadium in the first ever game of the series), but it was more important for the Mets to beat the Phillies and for the Yankees to beat the Red Sox. What interleague play did was to create a scheduling nightmare and reduce the number of intra-divisional games between teams that were actually rivals for the same pennant.

But I’m not the old man on the porch- not quite yet, anyway. My preference is actually more radical than anything Bud Selig came up with. And yet it’s also more traditional because it brings us back to the virtues the game once had. If I had my druthers, (and I had to go to the bathroom when they passed out the druthers), I would expand every major league sport to 32 teams and organize them into 8 geographical divisions, (which in baseball would mean getting rid of the American and National League designations). Pair up two of the divisions with each other on a rotating annual basis and have them play all their extra divisional games against each other. Then have the champions of those two 8 team divisions meet in the first round of the playoffs. The winners than play each other in the World Series/Super Bowl/Stanley Cup/NBA Finals. You’d have actual pennant races in each division where the teams would have to win their division to get a chance to play for the championship. You’d have 3-4 team races for that title. With 8 teams you’d have a team with a strong record representing each division. In the post season you’d get right down to determining the champion. Most people pay little attention until the semi- finals anyway. This way you’d go right to the semi-finals. And, since the pairing of the divisions rotates, you’d play everyone in the sport within 3 years, (except football).

Now that’s a new era I’d welcome.

 

[SWC75]

RUNS AND BASES
(Runs Produced: Runs scored + Runs Batted In – Home Runs so you don’t count them twice)
(Bases Produced: Total Batting Bases – one for a single, 2 for a double, 3 for a triple, 4 for a home run, + Walks + Stolen Bases)

1990 National League

Runs Produced
Bobby Bonilla PIT 200
Barry Bonds PIT 185
Ryne Sandberg CHI 176
Matt Williams SF 176
Joe Carter SD 170
Will Clark SF 167
Eddie Murray LA 165
Darryl Strawberry NY 163
Ron Gant ATL 159
Lenny Dykstra PHI 157

Bases Produced
Barry Bonds PIT 438
Ryne Sandberg CHI 419
Ron Gant ATL 393
Lenny Dykstra PHI 382
Eddie Murray LA 380
Brett Butler SF 380
Bobby Bonilla PIT 373
Darryl Strawberry NY 366
Howard Johnson NY 359
Chris Sabo CIN 356

1990 American League

Runs Produced
Cecil Fielder DET 185
Kelly Gruber TOR 179
Robin Yount MIL 158
Ellis Burks BOS 157
Mark McGwire OAK 156
George Brett KC 155
Julio Franco TEX 154
Ricky Henderson OAK 152
Kirby Puckett MIN 150
Ruben Sierra TEX 150

Bases Produced
Ricky Henderson OAK 444
Cecil Fielder DET 429
Fred McGriff TOR 394
Mark McGwire OAK 368
Ken Griffey Jr. 366
Kelly Gruber TOR 365
Jose Canseco OAK 352
Julio Franco TEX 347
Wade Boggs BOS 346
George Brett KC 345

1991 National League

Runs Produced
Howard Johnson NY 187
Barry Bonds PIT 186
Bobby Bonilla PIT 184
Ryne Sandberg CHI 178
Ron Gant ATL 174
Will Clark SF 171
Fred McGriff SD 159
Terry Pendleton ATL 158
Darryl Strawberry LA 157
John Kruk PHI 155

Bases Produced
Barry Bonds PIT 412
Howard Johnson NY 410
Ryne Sandberg CHI 393
Ron Gant ATL 383
Bobby Bonilla PIT 376
Fred McGriff SD 370
Will Clark SF 358
Chris Sabo CIN 357
Brett Butler LA 357
Terry Pendleton ATL 356

1991 American League

Runs Produced
Ruben Sierra TEX 201
Jose Canseco OAK 193
Paul Molitor MIL 191
Cecil Fielder DET 191
Frank Thomas CHI 181
Cal Ripken BAL 179
Rafael Palmiero TEX 177
Julio Franco TEX 171
Robin Ventura CHI 169
Kirby Puckett MIN 166

Bases Produced
Frank Thomas CHI 448
Cal Ripken BAL 427
Jose Canseco OAK 422
Paul Moltior MIL 421
Rafael Palmiero TEX 408
Ruben Sierra TEX 404
Joe Carter TOR 398
Cecil Fielder DET 398
Roberto Alomar TOR 388
Julio Franco TEX 380

1992 National League

Runs Produced
Terry Pendleton ATL 182
Barry Bonds PIT 178
Andy Van Slyke PIT 178
Dave Hollins PHI 170
Jeff Bagwell HOU 165
Darren Daulton PHI 162
Ryne Sandberg CHI 161
Larry Walker MON 155
Gary Sheffield SD 154
Ray Lankford STL 153

Bases Produced
Barry Bonds PIT 461
Ray Lankford STL 401
Fred McGriff, SD 399
Ryne Sandberg CHI 397
Marquis Grissom MON 393
Andy Van Slyke PIT 380
Gary Sheffield SD 376
Dave Hollins PHI 360
Craig Biggio HOU 358
Jeff Bagwell HOU 354

1992 American League

Runs Produced
Frank Thomas CHI 199
Kirby Puckett MN 195
Joe Carter TOR 182
Carlos Baerga CLE 177
Dave Winfield TOR 174
Roberto Alomar CLE 173
Cecil Fielder DET 169
Tony Phillips DET 168
Paul Molitor MIL 166
Travis Fryman DET 163

Bases Produced
Frank Thomas CHI 435
Brady Anderson BAL 431
Paul Molitor MIL 385
Roberto Alomar CLE 380
Kirby Puckett MN 374
Dave Winfield TOR 370
Shane Mack MIN 370
Mickey Tettleton DET 368
Mark McGwire OAK 363
Tony Phillips DET 361

1993 National League

Runs Produced
Barry Bonds SF 206
Ron Gant ATL 194
Lenny Dykstra PHI 190
Marquis Grissom MON 180
Dave Hollins PHI 179
Matt Williams SF 178
Fred McGriff SD 175
Bernard Gilkey STL 171
Darren Daulton PHI 171
John Kruk PHI 171

Bases Produced
Barry Bonds SF 520
Lenny Dykstra PHI 473
Ron Gant ATL 402
Fred McGriff SD 387
David Justice ATL 382
Craig Biggio HOU 381
Marquis Grissom MON 381
Greg Jeffries STL 372
John Kruk PHI 371
Darren Daulton PHI 368

1993 American League

Runs Produced
Paul Molitor TOR 210
Carlos Baerga CLE 198
Frank Thomas CHI 193
John Olerud TOR 192
Rafael Palmiero TEX 192
Roberto Alomar TOR 185
Albert Belle CLE 184
Joe Carter TOR 180
Juan Gonzalez TEX 177
Ken Griffey Jr. 177

Bases Produced
Ken Griffey Jr. SEA 472
John Olerud TOR 444
Frank Thomas CHI 443
Albert Belle CLE 427
Rafael Palmiero TEX 426
Roberto Alomar TOR 425
Paul Molitor TOR 423
Ricky Henderson OAK 401
Kenny Lofton CLE 383
Juan Gonzalez TEX 380

1994 National League

Runs Produced
Jeff Bagwell, HOU 181
Larry Walker MON 143
Dante Bichette COL 142
Fred McGriff ATL 141
Craig Biggio HOU 138
Moises Alou MON 137
Barry Bonds SF 133
Mike Piazza LA 132
Andres Galarraga COL 131
Tony Gwynn SD 131

Bases Produced
Jeff Bagwell HOU 380
Barry Bonds SF 356
Fred McGriff ATL 321
Craig Biggio HOU 312
Dante Bichette COL 305
Matt Williams SF 304
Moises Alou MON 299
Larry Walker MON 294
Tony Gwynn SD 291
Brett Butler LA 281

1994 American League

Runs Produced
Kirby Puckett MIN 171
Frank Thomas CHI 169
Albert Belle CLE 155
Julio Franco CHI 150
Kenny Lofton CLE 150
Jose Canseco OAK 147
Paul Molitor TOR 147
Joe Carter TOR 146
Carlos Baerga CLE 142
Ruben Sierra BAL 140

Bases Produced
Frank Thomas CHI 402
Ken Griffey Jr SEA 359
Kenny Lofton CLE 358
Albert Belle CLE 352
Jose Canseco OAK 321
Tony Phillips DET 313
Paul Molitor TOR 310
Rafael Palmiero BAL 301
Chili Davis CAL 292
Julio Franco CHI 291

Top Fifty Historical Run Producers by Ranking
(10 points for finishing first in a league, 9 for finishing second, etc.)

Honus Wagner (1897-1917) 137
Ty Cobb (1905-28) 126
Cap Anson (1871-97) 119
Stan Musial (1941-63) 119
Lou Gehrig (1923-39) 111

Babe Ruth (1914-35) 109
Hank Aaron (1954-76) 105
Willie Mays (1951-73) 100
Sam Crawford (1899-1917) 96
Rogers Hornsby (1915-37) 89

Ted Williams (1939-60) 89
Mel Ott (1926-47) 85
Mickey Mantle (1951-68) 82
Tris Speaker (1907-28) 81
Joe Medwick (1932-48) 79

Mike Schmidt (1972-89) 79
Frank Robinson (1956-76) 78
Joe DiMaggio (1936-51) 77
Nap Lajoie (1896-1916) 77
King Kelly (1878-93) 76

Hugh Duffy (1888-1906) 75
Eddie Collins (1906-30) 74
Dan Brouthers (1879-1904) 73
Jimmie Foxx (1925-45) 72
Sherry Magee (1904-19) 68

Comment: If this looks familiar, it’s because the standings didn’t budge. Dave Winfield went from 53 career ranking points to 59 but he’s done. The most ranking points held by any active player going into the 1995 season were 42 by Eddie Murray, who was near the end of his career, (which ended in 1997). Just behind him, with 41, was Barry Bonds.


Top Fifty Historical Base Producers by Ranking
(10 points for finishing first in a league, 9 for finishing second, etc.)

Ty Cobb (1905-28) 129
Hank Aaron (1954-76) 127
Babe Ruth(1914-35) 125
Stan Musial (1941-63) 121
Lou Gehrig (1923-39) 120

Willie Mays(1951-73) 118
Ted Williams(1939-60) 115
Honus Wagner (1897-1917) 112
Tris Speaker(1907-28) 110
Mel Ott (1926-47) 107

Rogers Hornsby (1915-37) 98
Jimmie Foxx (1925-45) 96
Mickey Mantle(1951-68) 96
Ricky Henderson (1979-2003) 94
Mike Schmidt(1972-89) 94

Cap Anson (1871-97) 91
Billy Hamilton (1888-1901) 89
Eddie Collins (1906-30) 89
Harry Stovey1880-93) 88
Sam Crawford (1899-1917) 86

Dan Brouthers (1879-1904) 83
Ed Delahanty (1888-1903) 79
Frank Robinson (1956-76) 79
Carl Yastremski (1961-83) 76
Jim O’Rourke (1872-1904) 73
Max Carey (1910-29) 73
Harmon Killebrew (1954-75) 73

Comment: Rickie Henderson made a move from 81 ranking points to 94 and he’s got some to go in a career that lasted until 2003. His best years are behind him but looking at his record, he will be productive enough to have a chance at triple digits. I don’t see him breaking into the top ten. Barry Bonds had 56 ranking points going into 1995.

 

[SWC75]

THE PLAYERS

BARRY BONDS established himself as the best player in baseball in the early 90’s. He certainly had the pedigree. His father was Bobby Bonds, one of the best players of the 1970’s. His Godfather was the great Willie Mays, a player Bonds was often compared to, at least early in his career. He struggled with that legacy. As noted above, “from 1986-89 hit .256 with a .345 on base percentage and a .458 slugging percentage. Per 162 games he averaged 81 walks with 104 strike outs. Then, from 1990-94 he hit .310, got on base 43.2% of the time and slugged .604. He averaged 119 walks and 79 strikeouts per 162 games. And he averaged 40 home runs and 44 steals because he was making better contact with the ball and getting on base more so he would have more opportunities to steal bases.” His improved mastery of the strike zone turned him into a superstar and is a hugely underrated factor in his career achievements, which has been overshadowed by his steroid use later in his career. As has been pointed out, he was already the best player in the game and he’d proved that in the early 90’s.

A confluence of events propelled him to this level. The Pirates, who had been using him as a leadoff hitter, the way his father had been used, put him in the middle of the order, where Andy Van Slyke and Bobby Bonilla offered some protection. He suddenly had the opportunity to drive in runs. He became more patient at the plate, looking for a pitch he could drive. His fielding prowess, which was considerable, began to be recognized, (he wound up with 8 Gold Gloves). And the Pirates suddenly resurrected themselves after a dreadful 1980’s, winning three straight divisional titles. Bonds got most of the recognition winning MVP awards in 1990, 1992 and 1993. In 1991 the writers made an idiosyncratic choice of Atlanta’s Terry Pendleton, (.319 with 22 homers, 10 steals 86RBI and 94runs scored) over Bonds (.292-25-43-116-95). Everybody knew who the best player was. He went on to win a record 7 MVPs and appear in 14 All-Star games.

His biggest year yet came when he returned to San Francisco to play for his father’s team, the Giants. He hit .336, walked 126 times to only 79 strike outs, hit 46 homers, stole 29 based, drove in 123 runs and scored 129. He wasn’t just the best player in the same. He was the best player in years. It was at this point he started to get bad publicity, as well. Sports Illustrated had a cover story entitled “I’m Barry Bonds – And You’re Not!”: http://cdn-s3.si.com/s3fs-public/2014/08/18/barry-bonds-si-60-cover.jpg
The Importance of being Barry
It was the beginning of his oddest accomplishment- being both the best player in the game and the most disliked. The second shouldn’t obscure the first and neither should the steroids issue, (more on that next time).

KEN GRIFFEY JR. had almost the same season in 1993 that Barry Bonds had: .309BA 45HR 17SB 109RBI 113RS. Actually, all those numbers are a little behind Bonds but for most of that season Griffey was the one you heard about. He’s been lauded as the greatest talent in baseball from the time he was signed as the first pick in 1987 draft. His early career reads like Mickey Mantle’s: in his first four years he batted an even .300 with an average of 22 home runs and 86 RBIs. Good numbers but not superstar numbers. But he had the sweetest swing in baseball and played center field with such speed and grace that sportswriters were poetic about it. He was so young that he was the youngest player in baseball for the first three full years of his career. Even in 1993 he was more than a year younger than both AL Rookie of the Year Tim Salmon and NL Rookie of the Year Mike Piazza – and he was in his fifth season. People expected him to own the record book by the time he was done.

That didn’t happen, although he still had a tremendous career, hitting no less than 630 home runs. The problem was injuries. He played until 2010, a 22 year career. But in those last ten years, he missed 486 games. He only batted .300 once in that time- .301in 2005. People expected him to be the one to catch Hank Aaron for the all-time home crown but the injuries never game him a chance. Unlike Bonds, there were never any steroid rumors about Griffey and he was considered an exemplary teammate and was popular with the press. Many considered him, when healthy, the greater player. He won 10 gold gloves playing what is usually regarded as a more difficult positon, center field, (Bonds was a left fielder).

I remember a TV commercial Griffey filmed in his prime. Somebody asked him what his lifetime batting average was and he correctly replied .302. That struck me. A player’s batting average in his prime is usually about 10 points higher than his final lifetime batting average. That put Griffey in the low .290’s. I wondered why a player with Griffey’s sweet swing and the speed to be a great center fielder would wind up batting .290 something. In fact Griffey, (in part due to the injuries) wound up batting .284. In his first big year of 1993 he had 96 walks and 91 strike outs. In his biggest home run years of 1997-98, he hit 56 homers each year and had exactly 76 walks and 121 strike outs each year. Unlike Bonds, he never improved and he never maximized his capabilities. He was strictly a “see the ball / hit the ball” guy”. His talent was so great he relied upon it to get him his numbers. He also didn’t run the bases as aggressively as Bonds, stealing only 184 times in his career compared to 514 for Bonds. Here are their “per 162 game” stats from Baseball reference.com:

Bonds: 159 hits, 139 walks, 83 strike outs, 33 doubles, 4 triples, 41 homers, 28 steals, 108RBI, 121 runs
Griffey: 169H 89W 108SKO 32D 2T 38HR 11SB 111RBI 101RS

Using my numbers, Barry produced 490 bases and 188 runs per 162 games, Ken 419 bases and 174 runs.

Griffey may have been the greater talent but Bonds was the greater player.

 

[SWC75]

FRANK THOMAS was Albert Pujols 1.0. Or Albert was Frank Thomas 2.0. Both were big strong first basemen who eventually became DH’s. They both had tremendous batting averages, a great eye at the plate, (and some admiring umpires), and great power with little speed. They both got off to incredible career starts and had great consistency for several years, then declined due to injuries and less admiring umpires. I recall specifically reading that Thomas was amazed that he wasn’t getting the calls he used to get and Pujols made the mistake of changing leagues in mid-career and thus having to deal with a new set of umpires.

Thomas’ stats per 162 games from 1990-1997:
.330BA 190H 132W 88SKO 37D 1T 39HR 3SB 129RBI 118RS 481 bases produced 208 runs produced

Pujols from 2001 until he left the Cardinals after the 2011 season:
.328BA 197H 93W 67SKO 43D 2T 42HR 8SB 126RBI 123RS 471 bases produced 207 runs produced.

Thomas walked more. Pujols, before the injuries, had some speed and also won a couple of Gold Gloves at first base. His prime also extended a few more years, so he’s the better player. But in their primes, they were very similar.

The rest of their careers, (including the 2016 season so far for Pujols):
Thomas: .276BA 157H 102W 106S 32D 1T 34HR 2SB 111RBI 92RS 397 bases 169 runs
Pujols: .263BA 167H 56W 83S 34D 0T 32HR 5SB 105RBI 85RS 358 bases 158 runs

Both were still productive players and they could hit a mistake a long ways time had passed them by and baseball was about someone else now.

The other thing I remember about Thomas was an article in Sports Illustrated after his decline had started. It detailed various financial and marital problems and how the game wasn’t so easy for him or the umpires so kind to him anymore. It almost made you feel sorry for a guy who had had so much success and made so much money. The article had a large picture of the house Thomas, who maintained a humble, pious image to the public, had had built for himself. It was atop a hill and was a classic “McMansion”, a turreted castle with dozens of rooms and nine large garages for his automobiles. There were expansive lawns, a small forest of trees around the property and multiple tennis courts.

If you could take your eyes away from the mansion and the winding, tree-lined road that led to it, you could look down the hill and see that it was full of other houses. These were of a fairly substantial size themselves, big enough to likely require live-in help. They had circular driveways and high roofs suggesting 3-4 floors and “great rooms”. They were obviously the houses of highly successful people- corporate executives, doctors and always whose yearly income may not have been equal to Thomas, (but I’m not even sure of that), but whose career of earning money at that rate will surely last much longer, such that they will make a lot more money than he will in their lives. Yet he was living in this house, literally and figuratively looking down upon them. The caption to the picture informed us that, actually Thomas no longer lived in that big house. But his ex-wife did….

Later, I thought about that how my point of view was partially a result of my middle class values. If I suddenly came into the amount of money Frank Thomas was making, I would realize, (I think), that my earning power would never be as great as at that time of my life and that I was basically earning money for my entire life. So I would (I hope) adopt a lifestyle that I could maintain over my entire life with that money. From that point of view, Frank Thomas was fool. He’ll wind up broke and working for Parks and Recreation and wistfully recall the days when he lived in a bigger house than everybody else, above everybody else.

But I realized that if I grew up in a black family in Georgia, (I’m assuming they were not well off but that’s another middle class assumption), I might have a different view. Maybe I would have an overwhelming need to show the world that I made it and to look down on people who had looked down on me, (in my perceptions, anyway). Perhaps, on some level, Frank Thomas realized that he could not have sustained such a lifestyle but it was enough to have achieved it, even temporarily. In any case, from reading his Wikipedia article, Frank is doing fine and isn’t doing any P&R work. He’s still a record company executive, which is what he was trying to be at the time. I don’t know who lives in the big house but maybe it just doesn’t matter anymore.

 

[SWC75]

In 1990 JUAN GONZALEZ led the American Association with 29 home runs. This was considered significant because that was the highest total in the minor leagues that year. It had been decades since nobody in the minors had hit 30 home runs. I remember columns being written wondering if the demise of power hitting was upon us with the new ballparks, new pitches, etc. They needn’t have worried. Baseball Reference.com lists “Juan Gone” as being 6-3 175. That must have been when he was first signed back in 1986. Their “bullpen” page has it right, saying he was 210-230 pounds. Gonzalez was one of the first group of players to transform himself into someone looking like a cartoon superhero, with bulging muscles all over the place. I used to have book called “Ted Williams Hit List” which discussed “modern” hitters, (from the 1990’s) and Ted was in awe of Juan Gonzalez’s muscular body and wondered how he got it that way.

He was one of the players Jose Canseco said was taking steroids in his book “Juiced”. He was a teammate of Gonzalez in the early 90’s. Gonzalez has denied taking steroids. He has also not come close to being elected to the Hall of Fame, despite some impressive numbers. Bill Jenkinson, in his book “Baseball’s Ultimate Power, barely mentions Gonzalez, ranking him the 79th best “Tape Measure Slugger” in the game’s history. Bill James rates him the 52nd best right fielder ever but his only comments are they none of the Texas Rangers players deserve MVP awards because their park helps them too much, that manager Johnny Oates used a ‘traditional’ line-up that “creates a large number of RBI opportunities in the middle of the order” and that sportswriters over-rate RBIs when they should be looking at other stats.

Maybe if they stopped determining who wins games by totaling up the runs, sportswriters will come around to Bill’s point of view. Juan certainly did like to drive in runs: "I concentrate more when I see men on base." He concentrated enough that in 1998 he had 101 RBIs at the All-Star break the first player to do that since Hank Greenberg in 1938, (and no one has done it since). Juan Gone hit .318 that season with 50 doubles and 45 home runs and drove in 157 runs. This went well with 1992 when he hit 43 homers and had 109RBI, 1993, when he hit 46 homers and had 118 RBI. 1996 when he hit 47 homers and had 144 RBI and 1997 when he hit 42 homers and had 131 RBIs. He never hit 40 home runs after 1998 but he had 39 with 128 RBI in 1999 and in 2001 he hit 35 homers with 140 RBI. The numbers may be deceiving but they are impressive and they all counted.

Gonzalez came apart after that, playing only `186 games in his last four seasons. People wondered if adding on all that muscle was too much for his frame to handle. But he did fine with it while it was still attached.

Somehow, I always associated ANDRES GALARRAGA with Juan Gonzalez. They weren’t related or teammates. Gonzalez was from Puerto Tico, Galarraga from Venezuela. But they had similar names and similar sizes and put up some similar numbers- eventually. Galarraga was 6-3 235 but he was that size from when he first showed up. He didn’t look like a cartoon character. His muscles were smooth and rounded. He was never accused of taking steroids. Galarraga was a much superior fielder. He was a two time Gold Glove winner at first base and his nickname was El Gato, “The Big Cat” for the way he moved.

He had his first good year in his second full season: 1987, when he hit .305 and had 90 RBIs. But the big man managed only 13 home runs. The next year he improved to .302-29-99, substantial numbers in 1988. Like Gonzalez, he always had a lousy walk-to-strikeout ratio and led the league in the latter category in 1989 with 158 while slumping to .257-23-85. He had basically the same season the next year and then completely fell apart in 1991, hitting only .219-9-33 in 107 games. He was traded to St. Louis where he wasn’t much better. A promising career seemed to have fizzled out. But the St. Louis batting coach, Don Baylor was impr4essed with him and when n Baylor became the manager at Colorado, he requested management get him The Big Cat. A mile up, Galarraga became a new player. His batting average improved by an astounding 127 points to .370, beating out Tony Gwynn for the batting title, which didn’t happen often. But he still didn’t hit a lot of homers for such a big powerful man: 22 with 98 RBIs. But Baylor taught him to swing for the fences and the next year he hit .319 with 31 homers in only 103 games, (it was the year of the strike and also of a broken hand just before it started). He had 85 RBIs, including a record 30 in the month of April. Two years later he was putting up number indistinguishable from Gonzalez: .304-47-150, .318-41-140, .305-44-121 in consecutive years. People always wonder about Colorado players- what would they do at sea level? But that last season was as an Atlanta Brave.

He had to be brave in 1999. “On his second lumbar vertebra in his lower back he had a tumor known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of lymphatic cancer. He missed the entire 1999 season receiving cancer chemotherapy.” (Wikipedia) It worked he came back the next year to hit .328-28-100. Pretty good for a 39 year old cancer survivor. He never reached that level again but he did manage to play on for parts of another four seasons, capping a remarkable 19 year career at age 42.

Jenkinson rates him the #31 home run hitter and credits him with hitting two 500+ foot blasts, both the year he turned age 36, as well as a 480 foot blast in San Francisco in 2001, the third longest home run ever by a player over the age of 40, (the two longest being Babe Ruth’s 713th and 714th home runs in Pittsburgh on 5/25/35). Bill James rates him the game’s 42nd best 1st baseman, honoring him for having his three best years in a row at ages 35-37 and for trying a comeback after cancer, (the book was written in 2000 before he succeeded).

In their careers, Gonzalez hit .295 with 434 homers. Galarraga hit .288 with 399 homers. Here are their numbers per 162 games:
JG: 186H 44W 122SKO 37D 2T 42HR 2SB 135RBI 102RS 399 bases 195 runs
AG: 167H 42W 144SKO 32D 2T 29HR 9SB 102RBI 86RS 341 bases 159 runs.

I wonder what they might have accomplished if they hadn’t done the pitchers such a big favor by swinging so wildly. And 135 RBIs per 162 games may be over rated but I sure wish my Mets had somebody like Juan Gone right about now.

 

[SWC75]

EDDIE MURRAY and FRED MCGRIFF are not exact contemporaries but their names came up in a discussion I had on Bud and the Manchild last year that illustrated a point about the way we look at statistics. Murray played from 1977-1997. He hit .287 lifetime with 504 home runs. McGriff played from 1986 to 2004. He hit .284 lifetime with 493 home runs. Murray was elected to the Hall of fame in 2003. McGriff is not in the Hall of Fame. The highest percentage of the vote he received is 23.9%. You need 75%. Why is Murray in the Hall when McGriff hasn’t come close?

Here are their numbers per 162 games:
EM 174H 71W 81S 30D 2T 27HR 6SB 103RBI 87RS 366 bases 163 runs
FM 164H 86W 124S 29D 2T 32HR 5SB 102RBI 89RS 384 bases 159 runs.

McGriff walked more but struck out a lot more. He had a bit more power. Speed was about equal. RBI and runs scored are basically identical. McGriff produced more bases because of his walks but fewer runs because he hit more home runs. Murray was the better fielder: he had three Gold Gloves. McGriff never won one. Both players have a World Series ring: Murray with the Orioles in 1983, McGriff with the Braves in 1995. Murray played in 8 All-stars game to 5 for McGriff but Fred was the All Star MVP in 1994.

I think Murray was the slightly better player but we all know why he made the Hall and McGriff didn’t: Eddie made it to 500 home runs, Freddie didn’t. When McGriff retired, the most similar players, by the “similarity scores” method, (used on Baseball Reference.com), to Fred McGriff were two Willies: McCovey and Stargell, both of whom are in the Hall of fame. (David Ortiz has since moved past them.) The most similar players to Eddie Murray were Rafael Palmiero and Dave Winfield. Were Stargell and McCovey worse that Palmiero and Winfield?

Timing may have bene a factor. Murray’s prime was over by the time the juiced ball era began in 1994. I think he tended to be judged by the standards of the previous generation. Fred was just 8 years into his career at that point and he was judged against men who were hitting 50-60-70 home runs. But they were men the voters now refuse to elect to the Hall of Fame because they were using steroids. The new era didn’t impact McGriff, who like Murray just seemed to have the same season over and over: he hit between 27-37 home runs 14 times but never more than that. Murray hit between 25-33 home runs 12 times. Consistency meant more in Murray’s time, unprecedented achievement in McGriff’s time.

McGriff was a member of the 1986 Syracuse chiefs along with CECIL FIELDER. When the team held a home run derby as part of a promotion, everybody wondered who would win it. The answer was Mike Sharperson, our second baseman who hit 4 home runs that year and 10 in 557 major league games. McGriff and Fielder did a bit better. Cecil never really made it with the Blue Jays, playing only 220 games and htit5ing 31 homers in 4 years. He jumped to Japan where he clubbed 38 homers for the Hanshun Tigers. That got him a shot with another set of Tigers- Detroit, where in 1990 he amazed baseball by hammering 51 home runs- the highest total since George Foster’s 52 back in 1977. And this was before the ball was Juiced so it may have been as good or better a season than the ones McGwire, Sosa and Bonds had later in the decade.

Unfortunately, “Big Daddy” was not built for the long haul. Bill James: “Fielder acknowledges a weight of 261, leaving unanswered the question of what he might weigh if he put his other foot on the scale.” Fielder deflated slowly like a balloon after his big year. He hit 44 dingers in 1991, then 35 then 30, then 28. He rallied for 39 with two different teams in 1996. But after that he was a part-time player and hit 47 home runs in his last 4 seasons, winding up with 319. He was not yet 35 when he was done. That was pretty much his whole game, as he hit .255 with 145 strike outs per 162 games, (with a high of 182 in his 51 home run year) and was acknowledged as the slowest player in the league. He gave the game a son, Prince, who is a similar player.

One thing I’ll always remember about Cecil. When he was in Syracuse he hit the longest home run our play-by-play man, Dan Hoard, had ever seen. Dan looked at it as it disappeared in the distance and said “That one had a crew of four and meal.”

 

[SWC75]

JEFF BAGWELL and MIKE PIAZZA were both victims of rumors, although justice has finally been served in Piazza’s case. They were both born in 1968 and both became hitting stars in the early 90’s and had strong, if injury-plagued careers. Both of them were held out of the Hall of Fame for several years based upon an unproven suspicion that they used steroids. Neither man ever tested positive or acknowledged use of banned substances in the Mitchell report or was among those accused by Jose Canseco of using the stuff. Bagwell did admit to using androstenedione (commonly referred to as "andro") in 1998, as did Mark McGwire but it was not a banned substance at that time.

Piazza, in his autobiography, admitted the same thing. I’ve heard that someone claimed to have seen pimples on Piazza’s back at some point in his career and that’s supposed to be a symptom of steroid use. Also a book by Roger Clemens claimed that Piazza had admitted off the record to a reporter that he used steroids but this reporter has not come forward to identify himself. Here’s an article debunking some of the mythology about Piazza:
Debunking the Mike Piazza steroid myth

Both were awesome hitters. Bagwell was the unanimous choice for NL MVP in the strike-shortened year of 1994, when he hit .368 with 39 homers, 116 RBIs and 104 runs scored in 110 games. Those would be his numbers had there been no strike as he broke his hand when hit by a pitch just before the strike. But if he’d played 162 those numbers would have been .368-57-171-153, one of the greatest seasons in baseball history, the sort of numbers you’d expect from Babe Ruth or maybe Jimmie Foxx. The fact that Bagwell’s best prior year was 1993 when he hit .320-20-88-76 gave rise to the steroid rumors but that was the year all of baseball had a sudden surge in batting to record levels. It was Jeff’s greatest season but far from his only great season. He hit .315-31-120-11 in 1996, then slumped to .286 but with 43 homers and 31 steals, producing 135 RBIs in 1997. In 1999-2000 he hit a total of 89 home runs with 258 RBIs and an incredible 295 runs scored, the most in two seasons in the National league since the days of Sliding Billy Hamilton in the 19th century. He walked an enormous number of times, as many as 149 times in a season. He was a 30-30 man that one season and won a Gold Glove in 1994. Finally, injuries, especially to his shoulder, made it harder and harder to swing the bat. After hitting .300 six times in eight years, he never did so in his last five seasons. But he still hit for power- hitting 39 homers in 2001 and 2003 and drove in runs. He finally had to give up the game 39 games into the 2005 season.

I remember two things about Bagwell. The Astros had several players put up big numbers while he was in their line-up” Craig Biggio, Moises Alou, Derek Bell, Carl Everett, Richard Hilgado, Lance Berkman, Morgan Ensberg, Jeff Kent, Carlos Beltran. But in every Astros game I ever watched when he was there, the guy the other team was pitching around was Bagwell. His presence in the line-up set the other guys up for big numbers, not the other way around.

Then there was his odd stance and his violent swing. He seemed to be almost sitting in an invisible chair with his fanny out and his torso rigidly straight. He would swing so hard he resembled a lumberjack trying to fell a tree with one blow of an axe. I looked at Mark McGwire and was amazed at how smoothly he swung- he was just trying to intersect with the ball. With Bagwell, he always seemed to be trying to muscle the ball over the fence. It’s not surprising that he hurt himself, developing bone spurs and arthritis in his shoulder that limited his ability to throw the ball or swing a bat.

Piazza was a 62nd round draft choice, (which, again, led to steroid suspicions), but became an instant star when he debuted for the Dodgers in 1993, hitting .318 with 35 homers and 112 RBIs. He hit .300 or better his first ten seasons in a row, with a high of .362 with 40 homers and 124 RBIs in 1997. He was acknowledged as the greatest hitting catcher in major league history, (we’ll always wonder what Josh Gibson might have done). When the Mets traded for him in 1998, he brought instant gravitas to a team that had been struggling for years. It means a lot to a team to have the best player on the field on their side and the Mets usually did. Even when the other side had a Bagwell or a Bonds, well, we had our superstar, too.

He was not a good defensive catcher, although he handled pitchers well. He was terrible at blocking balls or throwing runners out. He probably should have been shifted to 1st base early in his career, even before he became a big leaguer. It could have added 5 years to his career or his prime. The Mets tried to do it as the injuries catchers are always subject to began to catch up with Mike but his heart wasn’t in it. In his mind he was a catcher and playing first base was a demotion and a foreign environment. Eventually the Mets parted ways with Mike and he began the vagabond journey of a former star late in his career. But he came back to join Tom Seaver, the only Mets player of similar stature, to throw and catch the last pitch at Shea Stadium in 2008 and to do the same with the first pitch at Citi Field in 2009.

Bill Jenkinson loves Piazza. He rats him #22 among his all-time sluggers, primarily because he overcame the physical demands of his position to be a great power hitter. He has a 500 footer- in Colorado in 1997, 504 feet to the concourse atop the bleachers in left field. He also has a 485 footer in Shea off his future teammate Toml Glavine in 1998. In LA his longest was 478 feet through the dead air of Dodger Stadium in 1997, one that “soared onto the pavilion roof in left center”. Jenkinson says that Mike “belted so many 470-480 footers at Flushing that he supplanted Dave Kingman and Darryl Strawberry as the all-time distance king at that ballpark.” I’m not sure about that, (Strawberry had some awesome shots and Kingman, when he connected was second to nobody). But Jenkinson closes with: Whenever the question of Major League Baseball’s greatest offensive catcher is raised, there can only be one answer.” Bill James agrees, writing in 2000: “Too early to rate him with any confidence but probably the best hitting catcher ever to play the game.” Even so, Bill rates Mike as the 5th best catcher ever, behind Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Roy Campanella and Mickey Cochrane.

Both basically ignore Jeff Bagwell. Jenkinson mentions him once, to say that he’s the 71st best slugger of all time. James does rate Bagwell as the fourth best first baseman ever but his only comment is “Pass”, with no explanation.

Piazza got 57.8% of the Hall of Fame ballots in his first try in 2013, despite the statement of former opponent and teammate Glavine that he was “a first-ballot Hall of Famer, certainly the best hitting catcher of our era and arguably the best hitting catcher of all time". The next year he got 62.2%, the 69.9% in 2015, still short of the 75% needed. I remember ESPN having a panel of HOF voters and one of them said that Piazza, because of the steroid rumors, “did not meet the high standard of integrity I have for the Hall of Fame”. Before you can have a high standard of integrity, you need a high standard of evidence. Finally, in 2016, Mike got 83% of the vote and will be indicted into the Hall of Fame this summer.

Jeff Bagwell got 41.7% of the vote in 2011, 56% in 2012, 59.6% in 2013, 54.3% in 2014, 55.7% in 2015 but jumped up to 71.6% in 2016. The voters may be in a forgiving mode or maybe they realize that they might have done these players an injustice.

Piazza and Bagwell per 162 games:
MP .308BA 180H 64W 94S 29D 1T 36HR 2SB 113RBI 89RS 385 bases, 166 runs
JB .297BA 174H 106W 117S 37D 2T 34HR 15SB 115RBI 114RS 438 bases 195 runs

I love Mike but Jeff Bagwell was a better player who retired earlier and he should have gone into the Hall of Fame first.

 

[SWC75]

WILL CLARK and RAFAEL PALMEIRO were pals once. At least they were teammates at Mississippi State, where they were known as “Thunder and Lightning”. Thunder was the second overall pick in the 1985 draft and became a Giant while Lightening was #22 and became a Cub. In the early years, there was little doubt as to who was the better player. Through 1989, Clark had hit .304 with 98 home runs with 352 RBIs and 361 runs scored and become the star player of the Giants, leading them to the 1989 World Series. Palmeiro by that time had hit .287 with 33 homers 143 RBIs and 192 runs scored. He’d been traded by the Cubs to the Rangers, (and they won the division the next year).

But then, like a balloon that finally has enough hot air in it, Palmeiro’s numbers began to rise. For the next three years they were comparable players. Thunder hit .299 with 64 homers, 284 RBIs and 244 runs scored. Lightning hit .303 with 62 homers, 262 RBIs and 271 runs scored. Then the balloon headed for the skies while Thunder remained earthbound. Clark developed a series of nagging injuries, including bone chips in his elbow, that didn’t initially cost him that many games but robbed him of his power. He became that rarity: a contact-hitting first baseman. Meanwhile Palmeiro became on the premiere power hitters in the majors. From 1993 on, Clark hit an impressive .307 but with only 122 home runs in 8 years, with 569 RBIs and 581 runs scored. Palmeiro, in his remaining 13 seasons, hit .285 but with 474 homers, 1,430 RBIs and 1,200 runs scored. He hit over 40 home runs four times and at least 37 homers six other times. Clark won a Gold Glove but Palmeiro won 3 of them. Strangely, Clark was a 6 time all-star but Palmeiro was only an All-Star four times. Lightning had literally twice as many homers for his career at Thunder, (569-284) and had 630 more RBIs and 480 more runs scored.

Per 162 games:
WC .303BA 178H 77W 98S 36D 4T 23HR 5SB 99RBI 97RS 373 bases, 173 runs
RP .288BA 173H 77W 77S 33D 2T 33HR 6SB 105RBI 95RS 392 bases, 167 runs
Despite flashier home run numbers and the longer career for Palmeiro, they really were similarly potent offensive players. Jenkinson doesn’t mention Clark and lists Palmeiro in his “honorable mention” next to his list of the top 100 sluggers but otherwise ignores him, despite his 569 home runs. Bill James rates Will Clark the 14th best first baseman ever and Palmeiro #19 and takes the time to explain why. “Will Clark was a truly great player, in my opinion, from 1987-1992 when he was with the Giants. The numbers aren’t nearly as big then as they are now and Clark played in Candlestick, where fly balls go to get frostbite. Palmeiro has been a better player since 1993 but if you compare each player in their best seasons- Clark from 1987-92 and Palmeiro in the late 90’s, I think Clark had the more impact on his teams.” He considered Clark the better defensive first baseman and felt the fact that he led in two of the main percentages- batting average and on base percentage vs. slugging percentage- was in his favor “When you figure in park effects and league context, I think Clark had had the better of it so far.” (That was in 2000.)

Under Palmeiro James notes that Rafael won the 1999 Gold Glove at first despite the fact that he only played 28 games there. He was a DH the4 rest of the time. He goes on to take apart the Gold Glove voting system where voters can vote for anybody and a guy with 15% of the vote can get the Gold Glove. He prefers a system of statistical minimums, a committee to vet the candidates down to a few and weighted ballots: 3 points for first, 2 for second, etc. His warning about the current system: “A voting system like this is an open invitation to an eccentric outcome. If the United States were to use a system like this to elect the President, the absolutely certain result would be that, within a few elections, someone like David Duke, Donald Trump or Warren Beatty would be elected President.” He wrote that in 2000. I wonder who Bill will be voting for this year?

Bizarrely, Clark seemed to follow Palmeiro around late in his career. Palmerio couldn’t get the contract he wanted from the Rangers in 1993 so he jumped to the Orioles. The Rangers then signed Clark for more money that Palmeiro was asking for, which infuriated Raffy: "That's Will," Palmeiro was quoted as saying in Tuesday's Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. "He's got no class. Friendship didn't matter to him. He was looking out for himself. I don't think much of Will. He's a lowlife." The next day: "Will didn't deserve that," he told the Star-Telegram Tuesday. "I was just talking out of frustration. He wasn't at fault, he did what he had to do, I just felt left out." Later, Palmiero left Baltimore to return to Texas – and pass Clark, who was on his way to Baltimore to replace Palmiero! Wikipedia said that the two of them had problems getting along dating from their days at Mississippi State, so I guess there was no friendship. They were never actually pals.

Palmeiro was one of the players called before Congress in March, 2005 to testify on steroid use in baseball and he wasn’t happy about it: "Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never." The following August, Palmeiro tested positive for steroid use and was suspended by MLB. He claims that he never knowingly used steroids and that the positive test was because of something in a vitamin dose teammate Miguel Tejada got him from the Dominican Republic. Both the Mitchell Report and Jose Canseco accused Palmeiro of being a steroid user. He’s not in the Hall of Fame, being dropped form the voting after 5 years because he never received more than 4.4% of the vote. Maybe Donald Trump can do better.

 

[SWC75]

In his 2000 Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James rates JOE CARTER the 32nd best leftfielder in baseball history. He then spends the entire article on Carter trying to prove that Carter wasn’t as good a clutch hitter as his #3 man, Barry Bonds. He succeeds: Bonds hit fifty points better with men on base, 30 points with runners in scoring positon, 59 points better in the late innings of close games, 88 points higher with the bases loaded. And his OPS is 159 point higher in September. Carter has the higher league playoff batting average but only by .236-.200. Bonds had not at that point played in a World Series. Carter had done so twice for the Blue Jays and hit .277 with 3 doubles, 4 home runs, 12 RBIs and 8 runs scored in 11 games. At the end of the article, James concludes “I think it is hard to say that the record shows that Carter deserves any special credit as a clutch hitter”.

Firstly, I’d never heard Joe Carter compared to Barry Bonds before. I haven’t heard anyone suggest that he was comparable. Carter hit .259 with 432 doubles and 396 home runs in his career. Pretty good totals, but not comparable to Bonds’ .298BA with 601 doubles and 762 home runs. If being as good as Barry Bonds is required to be a good clutch hitter, nobody is going to look “clutch”.

And that was the intended point. Modern baseball stats are not designed to break down what happened in games so much as they are designed to imagine what players would have achieved in ideal, or at least similar circumstances. To do this the modern statistician prefers to look at rates rather than gross totals. And they tend to dismiss what I call “bottom line” numbers: essentially “runs produced”; in favor of what I call “contributory” numbers: essentially “bases produced”. They assume that activities of teammates and the nature of the ballpark or era are irrelevant in evaluating players and that looking at hits and walks is more important, assuming that teammates, ballparks and eras have less to do with those numbers. A special enemy is the idea of ‘clutch’ hitting: that when you do something is as important as how often you do it. That undermines analysis by rate and focuses on the end result. Thus it’s important for the stats guys to undermine any reputation as being a “clutch hitter”: you want the player’s achievements to be the result of his own general abilities and chance, not an increased ability in certain situations.

And yet, if you watch games, it’s obvious that when you do something is as important as how often. If I tell you that one team had 10 hits and the other team had 5, you might assume that the team with 10 hits won the game, but not necessarily. And you’ve never heard a sports announcer give the “scores” and mention hits or walks. The above the line numbers are only important insofar as they contribute directly to the scoring of runs. If you produce more bases, you will generally produce more runs but that doesn’t help you win a specific game: you’ve got to come through when it counts.

And Joe Carter came though plenty of times when it counted. He drove in 100 runs ten times, (and 98 another time).Mickey Mantle drove in 100 runs only four times in his storied career, playing for the Yankees. The only outstanding teams Carter played on were the Blue Jays’ 1992-1993 champions, before the big offensive explosion. He hit two doubles in the 6th and final game of the 1992 series and hit the second Series ending, championship winning home run in baseball history in 1993.

But the statistical achievement of Joe Carter’s that most impresses me came in 1990, when he played for a bad, (75-87) Padre team that scored 673 runs, (4.15 runs per game: the league average was 4.20). Joe didn’t even have a good year: he hit .232 with 27 doubles and 24 home runs. He drove in 115 runs for that team, 17% of the team’s runs. Nobody else drove in more than 72 runs, (Tony Gwynn had 72, 10.7%). Another power hitter, Jack Clark, had a better year than Carter: .266 with 25 home runs and had 62 RBIs. If what Joe Carter did in San Diego in 1990 isn’t clutch hitting, I don’t know what is.

 

[SWC75]

Words are important. We often lose sight of their real meaning and when we do that we lose our way. We think of a drunk in an alley as “pathetic”. But if someone gets hit by a car, that’s “tragic”. By their true meanings, the opposite is true, (unless the guy got hit by the car through his own negligence). In Greek drama, “pathos” is a play where misfortunes befall the hero through no fault of his own and evoke sympathy while “tragedy” is a play where the hero’s misfortunes can be traced to his own character and are thus reveling of that character. Tragedy produces not sympathy but more complex emotions: empathy, “catharsis” or at least, regret. All human lives contain tragedy and pathos, (as well as triumph, romance and comedy). But tragedy has the most impact.

In the 1985’s the previously moribund Mets were sprouting star prospects all over the place. Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Mookie Wilson, Kevin Mitchell, Greg Jefferies and… LENNY DYSKTRA. Lenny first made a splash in the Carolina League in 1983 when he hit .358, had 46 extra base hits including 14 triples and stole 105 bases, scoring 132 runs in 136 games. Mets fans couldn’t wait to see this modern Ty Cobb take his place in the Mets’ outfield. Lenny made his debut in 1985 but made his first real impact in 1986, when he platooned with Wilson in center field and hit .295 with 42 EXB and 31 steals. He also walked 58 times and scored 77 runs, despite the platoon. In the post season he hit two dramatic home runs: a walk-off in game three against the Astros and a game opening home run in Fenway Park with the Mets down 0-2, having lost the first two games at home to the Red Sox. The Mets rallied to win the championship and Lenny was the hero of the Big Apple.

He continued to show unusual power and speed for a lead-off hitter- and to platoon with Wilson, who had only the latter. In 1987, he hit .285 with 50 EXB, including 37 doubles and stole 27 bases in 1987. In 1988 he hit .429 in a losing effort in the NLCS. But the team was declining just when it should have been soaring with all those stars. One by one the frustrated Mets got rid of each one of them- and fell from 108 wins in 1986 to 103 losses in 1993. Dykstra was traded to the Phillies in 1989. He didn’t take it well. He’d been hitting .270 for the Mets and fell to .222 for his new team. But the Phillies were building and Lenny got in the swing of things, determine to make the Mets- in the same division, of course- regret that trade. He sure did. The official reason why he was traded was that the Mets were looking for “an offensive spark” and thought it might be the Phillies’ Juan Samuel, who tanked in New York. In 1990 he hit .325 led the league in hits with 192 while scoring 106 runs. Injuries held him to 156 games over the next two years but he hit .299 and scored 101 runs in those games. But he really exploded into – temporary- superstardom in the Phillies’ pennant-winning year of 1993, hitting .305 with a league leading 194 hits and 129 walks- one of four players in history to lead the league in hits and walks at the same time. He had 69 EXB including 44 doubles and 19 homers. He scored and astonishing 143 runs- the most in baseball in 44 years. His team won the pennant, which Barry Bonds’ did not and you could make a case that Dykstra, who finished second to Bonds in the MVP voting, actually deserved it more.

It was the height of his career and his life. He only played three more years and 186 games. He was only 33 when he last played in the majors, although he tried a comeback through the independent leagues in 1998. In 1991 he’d crashed his car while driving drunk. “Dykstra suffered fractured ribs, a broken cheekbone and a fractured collarbone”, (Wikipedia), and injuring teammate Darren Daulton. “In October 2015, Dykstra told Colin Cowherd that beginning in 1993, he paid a team of private investigators $500,000 to dig up dirt on MLB umpires. He used the information, he said, to leverage a more favorable strike zone during games.” (Ibid) It Might be true. Lenny walked 40 times in 1992 and 129 times the next year. But the fact that Lenny would brag about such a thing tells you an awful lot about him. He has now admitted, using steroids, (which may explain some of his frequent in juries) and had posed shirtless for magazines to show off his muscles. Andy Van Slyke, per Bill James, complained that when the Pirates played the Phillies, there was so much tobacco juice in center field that it was “like a toxic waste dump”. Keith Hernandez said the Mets traded Lenny because he was “a little wild and crazy” and that the Phillies obtained him for the same reason. “There was nothing corporate about the man”.

In retirement, Lenny continued to be “colorful” – and tragic. He ran a chain of car washes, then styled himself as a stock expert and was so successful at first that he became fabulously wealthy- or so it appeared.

It is alleged that he put an ad in Craig’s LIst for a “personal assistant” only to inform the female applicants that part of their duties would be to massage him. He then took off his clothes to show where he wanted to be massaged. His housekeeper accused him of sexual assault. He supposedly hired a Pron star as an escort and had the check bounce.

He bought a $17 million estate from Wayne Gretzky. But he still owed $13 million when he started stripping the property to pay his bills. Security guards had to be hired to keep him away from it. “In August 2009, Dykstra was living out of his car and in hotel lobbies.” In 2011 Dykstra was charged with bankruptcy fraud as well as drug possession and grand theft auto.” Dykstra faced up to 80 years in prison if convicted of all charges relating to embezzlement, obstruction of justice, bankruptcy fraud, making false statements to bankruptcy court, and concealing property from the bankruptcy court.” He was $31 million in debt, even after he’d auctioned off his 1986 World Series ring. His eventual sentence was 3 years, although he got out in 6 ½ months, community service and limited restitution.

Lenny was colorful, alright, but he needed to be a bit more ‘corporate’.


KIRBY PUCKETT was the Bill Cosby of baseball. He was a funny-looking guy but a very talented one who had a highly favorable public image and was much beloved, even moreso when bad luck with his health prematurely ended his career. But the image of being a great guy and a model citizen was collapsed along with his health and he died young, his reputation in ruins for those who didn’t dismiss or forget what he is alleged to have done.

Bill James, in discussing his #1 all-time catcher, Yogi Berra, said “Did you ever notice how many great baseball players have what could be loosely described a Hack Wilson type body? Kirby Puckett once said that his fantasy was to have a body like Glenn Braggs. Kirby was a shot, squat man who didn’t look like a baseball player. Braggs was about 6-3, slender, fast very graceful and, of course, one tenth the player Kirby Puckett was.

When you look around, there are a lot of good baseball players who have that Kirby Puckett body. Maybe I didn’t phrase that right: there aren’t many ballplayers built like Kirby Puckett. But, given that premise, they seem to be disproportionally successful- perhaps because scouts don’t like them and don’t want to sign them unless they are really good. But perhaps, just perhaps, the short, powerful body is actually the best body for a baseball: Long arms really do not help you when you’re hitting; short arms work better. Compressed power is more effective than diffuse power.”

He tells us that Berra’s home town team, the Cardinals offered Berra less money than his boyhood friend Joe Garagiola, because Garagiola looked more like their idea of a ballplayer. Berra went on to win 10 World Series with the Yankees while Garagiola made a career of joking about how bad he was.

Kirby Puckett, (5-8 178 when he showed up but probably more like 200 by the end of his career), was no joke, although he didn’t make an immediate splash. Hitting no home runs in 128 games his first year and 4 in 161 his second. But he could hit, (.292 in those seasons and run, (35 steals, 18 triples), and played a spectacular center field, often leaping above the “baggie” wall at the Metrodome to catch what would have been home runs and having the best defensive numbers of any center fielder in the league.

Twins hitting coach Tony Oliva worked with him to swing for more power, incorporating a leg kick into his technique similar to that of Mel Ott, another diminutive home run slugger. That did the trick and in 1986, Kirby Puckett became a 5 foot 8 inch superstar, hitting .328 with 31 home runs 20 steals, 96 RBI and 119 runs scored. As often happens, an offensive improvement caused people to recognize his defense and he won the first of his six Gold Gloves that year. He began to pound out the “Kirby Puckett years”. In the last ten years of his career he hit between .296 and .356 every year, hit between 20-28 home runs five times, had had three 100 RBI years, (and two 99s) with a high of 121, scored over 100 runs three times with a high of 119. His steals and triples declined and he never walked much but he never struck out 100 times, either. And it was worth the price of a ticket to see him play center field. He won two World Series rings, batting .309 with 5 homers, 15 RBIs and 16 runs scored in 24 playoff games, including the famous walk-off home run in the 11th inning of game six in 1991 which caused Jack Buck to simply say "And we'll see you tomorrow night!"

And then, suddenly, at age 36 it was over. Kirby was hitting .344 in spring training when he woke up on March 28, 1996 being unable to see out of his right eye. He was diagnosed with a central retinal vein occlusion. “Three surgeries over the next few months could not restore vision in the eye.” (Wikipedia) and Puckett announced his retirement on July 12th. His numbers and those of his physical idol, Glenn Braggs, per 162 games:
KP .318BA 209H 41W 88SKO 38D 5T 19HR 12SB 99RBI 97RS 367 bases, 177 runs produced
GB .257BA 141H 49W 110SKO 24D 4T 16HR 14SB 75RBI 72RS 284 bases, 131 runs produced

Bill James in 2000: “Its’ been five years and I know better, but I still half expect to pick up the paper and read that there has been a mistake or a medical breakthrough, and that Kirby will be allowed to come back and finish his career. Do I think Kirby is a Hall of Famer? Sure. Kirby had 2,300 hits at the time of his illness, actually 2,304. I estimate that he had a 62% chance of getting 3,000 career hits. Missing the decline phase of his career doesn’t change where he ranks on this list, (James has him as the #8 all-time center fielder), since the decline phase of a player’s career has more to do with padding numbers than with establishing greatness and I don’t see why it should keep him out of the Hall of Fame.”

Puckett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001. Twins GM Andy McPhail said of Kirby: "He has an effervescent, ingratiating personality. Kirby is a very warm, very genuine person. If he had been playing in New York or Los Angeles, they would be building statues to him." (Baseball Reference.com) Wikipedia: “Puckett was admired throughout his career. His unquestionable baseball prowess, outgoing personality and energy, charity work, community involvement, and attitude earned him the respect and admiration of fans across the country. In 1993, he received the Branch Rickey Award for his lifetime of community service work.” SABR: “he'll be remembered for his smile, his infectious enthusiasm, and his competitive nature that has made him the most popular athlete in the history of Minnesota sports. Even with the bad break that ended his career, Puckett refused to feel sorry for himself. He assured fans that he was fine and had no worries for the future.”

That should have bene the end of the story but it wasn’t. SABR: “In early 2002 came the news that Tonya Puckett was seeking a divorce following years of alleged abuse from her husband. Tonya had called local police on December 21, 2001, several days after a phone conversation with Kirby in which she said he threatened to kill her as they argued over Kirby's alleged infidelity. In a police report Tonya also alleged that in the past, Kirby had choked her with an electric cord, put a pistol to her face as she held her daughter, then two years old, and, on another occasion, used a power saw to cut through a door to get at her.”

Tonya was herself the subject of a charge of violent threats. Wikipedia: “In March 2002, a woman alleged that Puckett's wife Tonya had threatened to kill her over an alleged affair with Puckett, and she filed an order for protection against Tonya.” But “Later that same month another woman asked for protection from Puckett himself, claiming in court documents that he had shoved her in his Bloomington condominium during the course of an 18-year relationship. In September 2002 Puckett was accused of groping a woman in a restaurant bathroom, and was charged with false imprisonment, fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct, and fifth-degree assault.” He was found not guilty of all counts but fans suddenly had a very different view of their hero.

Meanwhile, his health broke. His weight ballooned to over 300 pounds. He suffered a stroke on March 5, 2006 and died the next day. He had a new girlfriend and they had planned to marry in June.

SABR: “Minnesotan's mourned the passing of one of the state's most popular personalities ever. The grief was in some ways compounded by the revelations in recent years about a person many people idolized to an extreme degree. Learning the truth wasn't easy for many, particularly those in Minnesota, and some had trouble reconciling the Puckett they had chosen to envision and the real Puckett--a human being with many virtuous qualities as well as some flaws. Those unable to acknowledge the flaws directed their anger at the messengers reporting the news as well as those behind the allegations--"scorned women" as seen by those straining to hang on to their pristine visions of Puckett.”

Frank Deford in Sports Illustrated: “In the final analysis, all they really know now in Minnesota is that he was one whale of a baseball player. They'll never be so sure of anyone else again. So, maybe that's a tough lesson well learned. The dazzling creatures are still just ballplayers; don't wrap them in gauze and tie them up with the pretty ribbons of Nice Guy or Boy Next Door (and certainly not of Knight in Shining Armor). On the other hand, what a price did fans pay to lose their dear illusions. You see, when the hero falls, maybe the hero worshipers fall harder. After all, Kirby Puckett always knew who he was. Well, he probably did. Nothing seemed to faze him. It was all the other folks who decided he must be someone else, something more. Yeah, the lovable little Puck was living a lie, but whose lie was it?”

Tragedy and pathos, as well as triumph, romance and comedy. It was all there in the life of Kirby Puckett.

 

[SU94]

Words are important. We often lose sight of their real meaning and when we do that we lose our way. We think of a drunk in an alley as “pathetic”. But if someone gets hit by a car, that’s “tragic”. By their true meanings, the opposite is true, (unless the guy got hit by the car through his own negligence). In Greek drama, “pathos” is a play where misfortunes befall the hero through no fault of his own and evoke sympathy while “tragedy” is a play where the hero’s misfortunes can be traced to his own character and are thus reveling of that character. Tragedy produces not sympathy but more complex emotions: empathy, “catharsis” or at least, regret. All human lives contain tragedy and pathos, (as well as triumph, romance and comedy). But tragedy has the most impact.

In the 1985’s the previously moribund Mets were sprouting star prospects all over the place. Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Mookie Wilson, Kevin Mitchell, Greg Jefferies and… LENNY DYSKTRA. Lenny first made a splash in the Carolina League in 1983 when he hit .358, had 46 extra base hits including 14 triples and stole 105 bases, scoring 132 runs in 136 games. Mets fans couldn’t wait to see this modern Ty Cobb take his place in the Mets’ outfield. Lenny made his debut in 1985 but made his first real impact in 1986, when he platooned with Wilson in center field and hit .295 with 42 EXB and 31 steals. He also walked 58 times and scored 77 runs, despite the platoon. In the post season he hit two dramatic home runs: a walk-off in game three against the Astros and a game opening home run in Fenway Park with the Mets down 0-2, having lost the first two games at home to the Red Sox. The Mets rallied to win the championship and Lenny was the hero of the Big Apple.

He continued to show unusual power and speed for a lead-off hitter- and to platoon with Wilson, who had only the latter. In 1987, he hit .285 with 50 EXB, including 37 doubles and stole 27 bases in 1987. In 1988 he hit .429 in a losing effort in the NLCS. But the team was declining just when it should have been soaring with all those stars. One by one the frustrated Mets got rid of each one of them- and fell from 108 wins in 1986 to 103 losses in 1993. Dykstra was traded to the Phillies in 1989. He didn’t take it well. He’d been hitting .270 for the Mets and fell to .222 for his new team. But the Phillies were building and Lenny got in the swing of things, determine to make the Mets- in the same division, of course- regret that trade. He sure did. The official reason why he was traded was that the Mets were looking for “an offensive spark” and thought it might be the Phillies’ Juan Samuel, who tanked in New York. In 1990 he hit .325 led the league in hits with 192 while scoring 106 runs. Injuries held him to 156 games over the next two years but he hit .299 and scored 101 runs in those games. But he really exploded into – temporary- superstardom in the Phillies’ pennant-winning year of 1993, hitting .305 with a league leading 194 hits and 129 walks- one of four players in history to lead the league in hits and walks at the same time. He had 69 EXB including 44 doubles and 19 homers. He scored and astonishing 143 runs- the most in baseball in 44 years. His team won the pennant, which Barry Bonds’ did not and you could make a case that Dykstra, who finished second to Bonds in the MVP voting, actually deserved it more.

It was the height of his career and his life. He only played three more years and 186 games. He was only 33 when he last played in the majors, although he tried a comeback through the independent leagues in 1998. In 1991 he’d crashed his car while driving drunk. “Dykstra suffered fractured ribs, a broken cheekbone and a fractured collarbone”, (Wikipedia), and injuring teammate Darren Daulton. “In October 2015, Dykstra told Colin Cowherd that beginning in 1993, he paid a team of private investigators $500,000 to dig up dirt on MLB umpires. He used the information, he said, to leverage a more favorable strike zone during games.” (Ibid) It Might be true. Lenny walked 40 times in 1992 and 129 times the next year. But the fact that Lenny would brag about such a thing tells you an awful lot about him. He has now admitted, using steroids, (which may explain some of his frequent in juries) and had posed shirtless for magazines to show off his muscles. Andy Van Slyke, per Bill James, complained that when the Pirates played the Phillies, there was so much tobacco juice in center field that it was “like a toxic waste dump”. Keith Hernandez said the Mets traded Lenny because he was “a little wild and crazy” and that the Phillies obtained him for the same reason. “There was nothing corporate about the man”.

In retirement, Lenny continued to be “colorful” – and tragic. He ran a chain of car washes, then styled himself as a stock expert and was so successful at first that he became fabulously wealthy- or so it appeared.

It is alleged that he put an ad in Craig’s LIst for a “personal assistant” only to inform the female applicants that part of their duties would be to massage him. He then took off his clothes to show where he wanted to be massaged. His housekeeper accused him of s e xual assault. He supposedly hired a Pron star as an escort and had the check bounce.

He bought a $17 million estate from Wayne Gretzky. But he still owed $13 million when he started stripping the property to pay his bills. Security guards had to be hired to keep him away from it. “In August 2009, Dykstra was living out of his car and in hotel lobbies.” In 2011 Dykstra was charged with bankruptcy fraud as well as drug possession and grand theft auto.” Dykstra faced up to 80 years in prison if convicted of all charges relating to embezzlement, obstruction of justice, bankruptcy fraud, making false statements to bankruptcy court, and concealing property from the bankruptcy court.” He was $31 million in debt, even after he’d auctioned off his 1986 World Series ring. His eventual sentence was 3 years, although he got out in 6 ½ months, community service and limited restitution.

Lenny was colorful, alright, but he needed to be a bit more ‘corporate’.


KIRBY PUCKETT was the Bill Cosby of baseball. He was a funny-looking guy but a very talented one who had a highly favorable public image and was much beloved, even moreso when bad luck with his health prematurely ended his career. But the image of being a great guy and a model citizen was collapsed along with his health and he died young, his reputation in ruins for those who didn’t dismiss or forget what he is alleged to have done.

Bill James, in discussing his #1 all-time catcher, Yogi Berra, said “Did you ever notice how many great baseball players have what could be loosely described a Hack Wilson type body? Kirby Puckett once said that his fantasy was to have a body like Glenn Braggs. Kirby was a shot, squat man who didn’t look like a baseball player. Braggs was about 6-3, slender, fast very graceful and, of course, one tenth the player Kirby Puckett was.

When you look around, there are a lot of good baseball players who have that Kirby Puckett body. Maybe I didn’t phrase that right: there aren’t many ballplayers built like Kirby Puckett. But, given that premise, they seem to be disproportionally successful- perhaps because scouts don’t like them and don’t want to sign them unless they are really good. But perhaps, just perhaps, the short, powerful body is actually the best body for a baseball: Long arms really do not help you when you’re hitting; short arms work better. Compressed power is more effective than diffuse power.”

He tells us that Berra’s home town team, the Cardinals offered Berra less money than his boyhood friend Joe Garagiola, because Garagiola looked more like their idea of a ballplayer. Berra went on to win 10 World Series with the Yankees while Garagiola made a career of joking about how bad he was.

Kirby Puckett, (5-8 178 when he showed up but probably more like 200 by the end of his career), was no joke, although he didn’t make an immediate splash. Hitting no home runs in 128 games his first year and 4 in 161 his second. But he could hit, (.292 in those seasons and run, (35 steals, 18 triples), and played a spectacular center field, often leaping above the “baggie” wall at the Metrodome to catch what would have been home runs and having the best defensive numbers of any center fielder in the league.

Twins hitting coach Tony Oliva worked with him to swing for more power, incorporating a leg kick into his technique similar to that of Mel Ott, another diminutive home run slugger. That did the trick and in 1986, Kirby Puckett became a 5 foot 8 inch superstar, hitting .328 with 31 home runs 20 steals, 96 RBI and 119 runs scored. As often happens, an offensive improvement caused people to recognize his defense and he won the first of his six Gold Gloves that year. He began to pound out the “Kirby Puckett years”. In the last ten years of his career he hit between .296 and .356 every year, hit between 20-28 home runs five times, had had three 100 RBI years, (and two 99s) with a high of 121, scored over 100 runs three times with a high of 119. His steals and triples declined and he never walked much but he never struck out 100 times, either. And it was worth the price of a ticket to see him play center field. He won two World Series rings, batting .309 with 5 homers, 15 RBIs and 16 runs scored in 24 playoff games, including the famous walk-off home run in the 11th inning of game six in 1991 which caused Jack Buck to simply say "And we'll see you tomorrow night!"

And then, suddenly, at age 36 it was over. Kirby was hitting .344 in spring training when he woke up on March 28, 1996 being unable to see out of his right eye. He was diagnosed with a central retinal vein occlusion. “Three surgeries over the next few months could not restore vision in the eye.” (Wikipedia) and Puckett announced his retirement on July 12th. His numbers and those of his physical idol, Glenn Braggs, per 162 games:
KP .318BA 209H 41W 88SKO 38D 5T 19HR 12SB 99RBI 97RS 367 bases, 177 runs produced
GB .257BA 141H 49W 110SKO 24D 4T 16HR 14SB 75RBI 72RS 284 bases, 131 runs produced

Bill James in 2000: “Its’ been five years and I know better, but I still half expect to pick up the paper and read that there has been a mistake or a medical breakthrough, and that Kirby will be allowed to come back and finish his career. Do I think Kirby is a Hall of Famer? Sure. Kirby had 2,300 hits at the time of his illness, actually 2,304. I estimate that he had a 62% chance of getting 3,000 career hits. Missing the decline phase of his career doesn’t change where he ranks on this list, (James has him as the #8 all-time center fielder), since the decline phase of a player’s career has more to do with padding numbers than with establishing greatness and I don’t see why it should keep him out of the Hall of Fame.”

Puckett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001. Twins GM Andy McPhail said of Kirby: "He has an effervescent, ingratiating personality. Kirby is a very warm, very genuine person. If he had been playing in New York or Los Angeles, they would be building statues to him." (Baseball Reference.com) Wikipedia: “Puckett was admired throughout his career. His unquestionable baseball prowess, outgoing personality and energy, charity work, community involvement, and attitude earned him the respect and admiration of fans across the country. In 1993, he received the Branch Rickey Award for his lifetime of community service work.” SABR: “he'll be remembered for his smile, his infectious enthusiasm, and his competitive nature that has made him the most popular athlete in the history of Minnesota sports. Even with the bad break that ended his career, Puckett refused to feel sorry for himself. He assured fans that he was fine and had no worries for the future.”

That should have bene the end of the story but it wasn’t. SABR: “In early 2002 came the news that Tonya Puckett was seeking a divorce following years of alleged abuse from her husband. Tonya had called local police on December 21, 2001, several days after a phone conversation with Kirby in which she said he threatened to kill her as they argued over Kirby's alleged infidelity. In a police report Tonya also alleged that in the past, Kirby had choked her with an electric cord, put a pistol to her face as she held her daughter, then two years old, and, on another occasion, used a power saw to cut through a door to get at her.”

Tonya was herself the subject of a charge of violent threats. Wikipedia: “In March 2002, a woman alleged that Puckett's wife Tonya had threatened to kill her over an alleged affair with Puckett, and she filed an order for protection against Tonya.” But “Later that same month another woman asked for protection from Puckett himself, claiming in court documents that he had shoved her in his Bloomington condominium during the course of an 18-year relationship. In September 2002 Puckett was accused of groping a woman in a restaurant bathroom, and was charged with false imprisonment, fifth-degree criminal s e xual conduct, and fifth-degree assault.” He was found not guilty of all counts but fans suddenly had a very different view of their hero.

Meanwhile, his health broke. His weight ballooned to over 300 pounds. He suffered a stroke on March 5, 2006 and died the next day. He had a new girlfriend and they had planned to marry in June.

SABR: “Minnesotan's mourned the passing of one of the state's most popular personalities ever. The grief was in some ways compounded by the revelations in recent years about a person many people idolized to an extreme degree. Learning the truth wasn't easy for many, particularly those in Minnesota, and some had trouble reconciling the Puckett they had chosen to envision and the real Puckett--a human being with many virtuous qualities as well as some flaws. Those unable to acknowledge the flaws directed their anger at the messengers reporting the news as well as those behind the allegations--"scorned women" as seen by those straining to hang on to their pristine visions of Puckett.”

Frank Deford in Sports Illustrated: “In the final analysis, all they really know now in Minnesota is that he was one whale of a baseball player. They'll never be so sure of anyone else again. So, maybe that's a tough lesson well learned. The dazzling creatures are still just ballplayers; don't wrap them in gauze and tie them up with the pretty ribbons of Nice Guy or Boy Next Door (and certainly not of Knight in Shining Armor). On the other hand, what a price did fans pay to lose their dear illusions. You see, when the hero falls, maybe the hero worshipers fall harder. After all, Kirby Puckett always knew who he was. Well, he probably did. Nothing seemed to faze him. It was all the other folks who decided he must be someone else, something more. Yeah, the lovable little Puck was living a lie, but whose lie was it?”

Tragedy and pathos, as well as triumph, romance and comedy. It was all there in the life of Kirby Puckett.

You are a machine.!

 

[AccuRater]

Powerful stuff, SWC. Reads like a transcript of a particularly good 30 for 30.

 

[br801]

Bagwell and Piazza both should have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame long before now, but Piazza was the superior player, IMO. Bagwell was a great offensive player, but there have been many other great offensive players at his position; Piazza was a transcendent offensive player at his position.

 

[SWC75]

Bagwell and Piazza both should have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame long before now, but Piazza was the superior player, IMO. Bagwell was a great offensive player, but there have been many other great offensive players at his position; Piazza was a transcendent offensive player at his position.

I've always felt that when you are a batter, you are a batter. When you are in the field, you are in the field. Bagwell's defensive impact on a game arguably exceeded Piazza's even though he was at an easier position to field because he was much better at it, (and Piazza, as I suggested, should have been shifted there much earlier, probably before he ever made it to the majors). Offensively, Bagwell was more versatile but at least comparable.

 

[br801]

I've always felt that when you are a batter, you are a batter. When you are in the field, you are in the field. Bagwell's defensive impact on a game arguably exceeded Piazza's even though he was at an easier position to field because he was much better at it, (and Piazza, as I suggested, should have been shifted there much earlier, probably before he ever made it to the majors). Offensively, Bagwell was more versatile but at least comparable.

Catching takes a toll on the body like no other position on the field. Had Piazza played his entire career at first base, he almost certainly would have played more games and likely would have maintained his peak offensive output for a longer time, producing counting stats maybe 10-20% higher than his actual career totals.

 

[SWC75]

Catching takes a toll on the body like no other position on the field. Had Piazza played his entire career at first base, he almost certainly would have played more games and likely would have maintained his peak offensive output for a longer time, producing counting stats maybe 10-20% higher than his actual career totals.

And then he might have been a better player than Bagwell.

 

[br801]

And then he might have been a better player than Bagwell.

But if Bagwell had been a catcher, I'm guessing he would not have come close to Piazza's offensive output.

 

[SWC75]

But if Bagwell had been a catcher, I'm guessing he would not have come close to Piazza's offensive output.

I'll refer you to the second on Bonds and Griffey. It's a similar comparison.